


Touch Rule

by Delcat



Series: The Skies We're Under [5]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Death, Biting, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Chess Metaphors, Dental Trauma, Dirty Talk, Dominance, Eye Trauma, Fluff, Force-Feeding (Nonsexual), Gore, Gratuitous Coat-Bundling, Guro, Hot Guys Vomiting Blood, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Play, M/M, Masochism, Medical Kink, Medical Torture, Mental Instability, Mindfuck, Needles, Nightmares, Parasites, Praise Kink, Psychosis, Smoking, Stuttering, Submission, Work In Progress, Worship, blood transfusion, disturbing mental imagery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:39:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7776442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delcat/pseuds/Delcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the long descent through the layers of the Board,  Wilson winds up on Maxwell's doorstep, barely alive and plagued by waking nightmares.  The journey is over, and there should be no more monsters to fight.  Unfortunately, the whispering shadows are taking shape, and the line between fever dreams and dark visions is razor-thin...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First

The divining rod had been abandoned.  The path was clear now, and in any case, his good arm wasn't exactly good anymore.

It wasn't truly dark here, not like the last world had been, but the torches hurt his eyes as they lit in pairs, snuffed out again.  They kept him moving straight, though, set touchpoints to move between, kept him from swerving off after shadows.  The world had been red for too long now, dark pulsing red.

He didn't realize the door was real at first, bouncing off of it once and then staggering straight into it again before his mind stirred from under the thick grey haze.

Wilson shifted to lean against it as he splayed a hand across the wood.  It was faintly damp to the touch, cold, but solid.  At the same time, though, there was a...falseness.  He could hear distant music, and behind his eyes he could clearly see a throne, a terrible...

He laughed hoarsely, slumping down against it.  Did it matter?  Another door.  Another world.  He had no rations, no salves, no light, and as the laugh turned into a rasping cough, it brought fresh blood with it.

This was where he was going to die.

As his eyes slid closed, he could hear Chester whining and scratching at the door.

_Please God, let her be all right._

He curled in on himself as shadows plucked at his limbs, whimpering and hugging his broken arm to his chest as they grasped and pulled, deliberately grating bone on bone to follow the coarse pain into existence a little while longer.  It wasn't the pain that mattered.  He was going to forget.  He didn't want to forget.  He'd forgotten once, he'd come this far and the past had scraped down his spine as it filled itself in, he'd endured the shame and loss that hollowed him out with each burst of memory because how could he forget, how had he forgotten--he couldn't do this again, _he didn't want to forget_ \--

He held his breath as they lifted him and tried to remember how to die.

Then he was lifted again, pulled roughly away from their grasp.  He gasped as a talon took a parting chunk out of his side, and there was still air to breathe.

Smoke.

Leather.

His name, not as anything to be heard or understood, but brief percussive force between the whispers.

It took effort to open his eyes, further effort to discern between reality and silhouettes--red and blue on chalkboard black--but he managed to say what was important as he tried and failed to grasp Maxwell's coat.

"I remember."

Wilson dropped his head and let himself fall.

 

\------

 

Climbing back took time.

There were fragments, pieces of being that didn't fit together.  Waking held down as he convulsed in agony, his bare arm twisted and bloody-bruised, pushed back down through the bed by Maxwell's hands and the sharp urgency of his voice.  Waking in pitch black, alone, without a body, words heard through distant walls forgotten as soon as spoken.  Waking from waking, Maxwell watching him with hatred he had learned secondhand, waking from _that_ to the sudden weight of a stone laid on his chest, blissfully cool, because spring had ended, and summer was the dying time.  Drying time, strips of leather fluttering on bleached bones in milkweed patches where maggots had come and gone.  Everything dead, everything still, everything dry.  Everything so...

Wilson took a breath, and it hitched as a dull wheeze in his chest.  It brought the world in around him.

There was...dust.  Heat.  Too much heat.  There was light, but he was cradled in shadow, straitjacketed in it, bands and talons criss-crossing over his chest, pulling it tight and taut like a hide being tanned in the sun--the bones, the birds, the sun, and the dust was the breath in his throat, pulling blood into his lungs, bringing it up fresh as he coughed--

The image of a deer hung from its neck seared over his vision, its own blood dripping to the thick sawdust below from the neat opening down its side, and he understood the creaking of the corpse in the wind even as he understood the creaking of the floorboards and the unbearable softness of silk against cracked lips.

"Christ..."

_"Maxwell?"_

The word didn't come out, was swallowed up by sand and dry snow, but the shape of it moved against the handkerchief, and Wilson flinched badly and curled in on himself as a leather-gloved hand grasped his chin, closing his eyes.

"Come on, kid.  I see you in there."

No.  No, not here.  Too much to hope for.  Not here.  Nothing was here, and he knew the shape of nothing now, and he didn't want to see it.

"Wilson."

It was a low growl, threatening, but it flowed over him like rainwater.

Nothing didn't know his name.

The word was dead as he said it, but his lips moved again.

_"Maxwell."_

"That's right." Cool leather brushed his cheek, and Wilson leaned into it, leaned in to the weary laugh. "That's right, pal."

Things pieced themselves together as he opened his eyes.  The flayed stag was gone, and the world was still misbehaving, swimming around the edges, and oh God everything hurt, but he could make sense of his surroundings as a room.  He was inside.  Safe.  The heatstroke light was just an ordinary lamp, the desert heat was just the fire in the hearth, and the shadows holding him were just...just...

Wilson stared at the shadow hands holding him in place, trying very hard to not see them.  Now suddenly seemed like a bad time to be sane.

"Goddammit--don't panic, calm _down_ _!_ " Maxwell put one hand on Wilson's throat, cutting off a raw clicking sound that he hadn't been aware he was making and that definitely wasn't close enough to screaming as he had intended. "This is why they're there, you keep fucking--" He gritted his teeth. "Hold.   _Still._ "

The bite in his voice wasn't unkind, but it was dangerous, and Wilson stopped writhing beneath the dark blanket of limbs.  Rational thought was still trailing behind unpleasant apparitions, trying to catch up, but the heavy agony of his body was starting to divide into logical sections--the gnawing pain up and down his left side, the sharp flares digging at his arm with every tiny movement, the splinter-scrape of his blanched throat, the throbbing ache threaded through his muscles and cinched around his skull.  He was suddenly afraid to see beneath the curtain of shadows.

"Good boy." Maxwell withdrew his hand, smirking a bit as Wilson squirmed again, just a little, in a very different fashion. "Gonna let you loose now.  Make me regret it, and I won't be the only one."

He snapped his fingers, and the shadows dissolved.

**Tch.**

It was uncertain whether the sound was a reprimand or a comment on Wilson's sorry state, and when he shook his head to clear it, his headache spiked and his ears rang as reward.  Worse again as Maxwell lit a match and Wilson squinted against the glare, and as he turned, trailing smoke away from Wilson's field of vision, he started picking up facts and putting them back down again as quickly, as if afraid they'd stain his fingertips.  His broken arm was still held tight, but just by a sling, and that was good.  There were bandages across his stomach, bloody at one side, and he couldn't remember what had happened there, and that was bad, but it felt...better, clean, safe.  He couldn't feel his bad leg, but that was enough of a well-earned respite that he could put aside the worrying implications for now.  He was half dressed, the thermal stone Maxwell had laid on his bare chest already turning warm, and he definitely wasn't sure how he felt about that, decided he didn't care if it meant any relief from the sun-- _fever_ , he corrected himself, he was feverish.  He was sick, he had been sick.  That was why his throat was...

No.

Wilson swallowed blood.

It wasn't that at all.

"Still with me, kid?  Here."

Wilson flinched as Maxwell dropped a stack of paper and a pen into his lap, the stone rolling to one side.

" 'Bout time both of us got some damn' answers."

A weak smile ghosted across Wilson's face.  Ingenuity.  He could appreciate that.  Actually, there was a lot he could appreciate about this, if only in brief moments.  He felt heavy against the bed, but it was a _bed_ , sweet in its softness, and it didn't smell like hospital hallways, sick or not.  Because hospitals were--

**Never safe.**

He picked up the pen gingerly, suddenly self-conscious of the way his hands shook.

Maxwell took a deep drag on his cigar, held it, exhaled smoke. "Let's start nice and easy.  What year is it?"

Wilson narrowed his eyes, thinking very carefully, then wrote a single word, underlined twice.

_Here??_

One gloved hand came into his field of vision as it turned the paper, and Maxwell laughed.

"Heh.  You _are_ with me.  Good."

Wilson exhaled, his smile strengthening.  Still tests, then, everything had been a test since the lights had gone out, but now they were making sense.  Not like--like--

" _Stop that._ " Maxwell's voice was suddenly a no-nonsense hiss, and Wilson's hand dropped nervelessly from tearing at his hair. "And fucking--look at me."

He tried to turn his head as Maxwell grabbed him by the chin, closing his eyes as he was forcefully turned back.

" _Open_. Your eyes."

No.  No, because he wasn't there, because something else was, because both of those things were true but they weren't exclusive, because everything was a goddamned _test_ \--

"Just...trust me, for fuck's sake."

His voice was tired, and Wilson stopped struggling.

**Not like you have a choice.**

A tic of dark laughter worked at the corner of his mouth, but Wilson opened his eyes and looked at Maxwell's face for the first time.

He _was_ tired.  Wilson found himself grasping at time, wondering how long he must have been watching over him, watching him, awake, but the pins-and-needles fear slowly dissolved as Maxwell--actually Maxwell, just Maxwell--continued to stare back.  There had been too many times when his face hadn't been there, or worse, had been wrong, his eyes simply...wrong, in ways he couldn't remember when he woke up.  It could still be a nightmare, an eloquently cruel one, waiting to strike, but he didn't think so.  Nightmares didn't understand names, and they understood eyes too well, they envied them.

Why was he thinking that?  Why did everything keep slipping sideways?

Oh, God, it was so hot.

"Satisfied?"

He wasn't, entirely, but he nodded anyway, and picked up the pen as Maxwell withdrew his hand, hesitating, unsure of where to start.

"Just the basic facts, kid.  Don't push yourself." Maxwell took another drag off of his cigar. "You'll be _thanking_ me later, don't worry about that."

The pen nib dug rather harshly into the paper at the slow roll of Maxwell's voice over the word, but he shook it off and handed it over.  Something was, at least for the moment, more important.

_Chester_

Maxwell's face was briefly blank--blank the expression, not blank **like that** , thank God, thank God--and then he realized. "Right, right, you named the...she's in the other room, she's fine.  Goddamn mutt saved your hide, _she_ had enough brains to scratch at the door." He smirked as Wilson slumped in relief, a bit wider as he slowly touched his side. "Remembering a few things, pal?"

Remembering more important things than...whatever had happened out there, he didn't want to think of the same hands that had been trying to tear him apart being used to pin him in place, broken arm or no.  The pain was...bad, worse than usual, profuse, but that had been fixed once before.

_N2O ?_

He stopped, catching himself, and started to write longhand, then stopped again as Maxwell's lips moved briefly, reading upside down. "Nitrous...sorry, kid, used the last of it stitchin' you up." He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "Believe me, if I had any left, you wouldn't be awake right now."

**Better off asleep.**

Wilson was still while Maxwell collected himself, not wanting to waste effort on asking how he knew scientific notation, and also not wanting to stray too far into questions that mattered too much to ask.  Just the basic facts.  Just...

**It doesn't hurt asleep.**

If he was careful, the pen didn't make any noise.  It had been a long time since he'd had to do it, but he remembered the late nights and hidden notes, hidden books, enough hidden words for a lifetime and here he was doing it again.  He bit his lip at the thought, tapped the pen against the paper twice to get Maxwell's attention and turned it carefully.

Maxwell reached for the page, stopped and furrowed his brow when Wilson's grip on it tightened, and read silently.

He remained silent for a long moment, studying Wilson's expression, the trembling in his shoulders, the way his eyes were fixed on the paper, unmoving.  The room wasn't silent, it had clouds of snapping static in it, and they made the hooks dangling from the ceiling clank back and forth even though there was no wind.

_I don't trust the doctor please make him leave_

**Tch.**

The sound was definitely a reprimand this time, a derisive click of bone on bone, and he finally looked at the bird doctor standing at the foot of the bed, Maxwell's eyes following his, everything about eyes, because the doctor wasn't a doctor and his eyes were wrong wrong **wrong** and as the shadows gripped him again he knew he had gambled and lost, they were an alliance, he had trusted Maxwell and _he was on the wrong side_ \--

"I saw a horse once."

Wilson stopped struggling.  Maxwell's voice usually had a distinctive cadence to it, half sardonic, half cajoling, tipping one way or the other with mood, but it was gone now, replaced with quiet, even clarity.  It made as much sense as what he was saying, but it cut through the radio buzzing and the clicking of the Corporal's beak, and he risked a glance at him, shivering as the black bird's head turned in tandem.

"Sick a lot as a kid." His back was turned to them both, working on something not quite in Wilson's line of sight, but one hand was just barely visible as he pulled the glove off of it. "Bad air.  Bad lungs.  Bad fevers." He took in a sharp breath at...something, some movement. "Not as bad as yours, but..." He laughed, without much humor. "I saw a lot of things.  Things you'd think would be worse, monsters, demons, this goddamned headless cat sitting on the windowsill, but..."

He paused, and Wilson realized the static had turned back into the crackling of the fire.

"I'm not afraid of horses, pal.  Not afraid of much of anything.  Never have been.  It was just this ordinary fucking white horse, and it was in the room with me, and..." The cadence had been coming back, but it dropped again to that smooth stillness. "I've never been so frightened of anything in my life.  There was no reason, it was just..."

_”Wrong.”_

Maxwell glanced back as Wilson mouthed the word, and he nodded silently.  Wilson swallowed hard, and he realized his eyes were burning.

**This is what he does.  He's lied to you before.**

Some things couldn't be lied about.  Not that _well_ , if he had left it at the headless cat he would have known it was an attempt to mollify him or scare him into submission, but knowing what it meant for something as mundane as a horse to rip apart the world when the world was too hot and too tight and you were trapped behind your own eyes--

**Oh, look.  He's going to hurt you again, dear.**

Wilson caught a glimpse of a needle as Maxwell turned and shrank back, suddenly aware of the patch of bare skin on his arm that the grasping shadow hands had left open, suddenly aware of what was about to happen, suddenly bitterly aware that you could be honest with one hand and lie with the other.

"Quit squirming--"

**He's going to shut you up and shut you away.  That's the only thing left for such miserable, broken creatures as you, didn't I warn you?  Didn't they tell you it runs in the family?**

" _Hold still and shut up before you start coughing again, goddammit!_ "

The edge of desperation was foreign enough to jolt Wilson back to a kind of reality, and he almost questioned how he could possibly shut up when he was already mute before realizing his lips were moving, fervently repeating one phrase over and over again, and he clenched his teeth to stop it.

"There.  Good." Sarcasm dripped back into Maxwell's words, and it was a perverse relief. "If you're trying to beg me to stop, don't think I don't _applaud_ the effort, but unless you dragged yourself here to die because you're a grown man afraid of one little goddamn prick, especially after showing just how _fucking_ eager you are to climb onto a _bigger_ one, this is going to happen, pal."

Wilson's face was hot with both shame and humiliation, two things that he had come to the confusing ideation of being entirely different in some way, but he shook his head, forming the same words again, but clearly, bleak and pleading.

_”I'm not crazy.”_

Maxwell's expression softened, and he drew gloved fingertips over Wilson's cracked lips gently, cleaning away the frothed blood there. "I know, sweetheart.  I know."

Fresh heat flooded Wilson's cheeks, and Maxwell's lips quirked into a smile. "Heh.  Like pet names after all, pal?"

**What would** **_you_ ** **say to a rabid animal to keep it from biting, my dear?**

Wilson gritted his teeth at the nightmare creature's voice, lax and sweet and jovial and _sharp_.  Sharper than needles, he was suddenly sure of that, and he stretched his arm out and closed his eyes, swallowing.

"Good boy."

The smell of alcohol was bearable, was a promise against infection, and the probing of Maxwell's fingertips for a vein as the shadows tightened was almost all right, almost calming, but as the needle slid in he was perversely thankful there was nothing in his stomach to bring up, horribly aware his body was trying anyway, the grating agony of the tortured flesh of his throat contracting against itself almost a relief, anything to distract from the intrusion of...

What was he even being dosed with?

He slitted his eyes open, stared without comprehension for a long moment before putting it together, longer to try to truly understand.  The rubber tubing between Maxwell's wrist and his own was a flash of paranoia that set the world swimming fresh, there was too much of it in what he saw between his eyelids and the dark, water-rotted baby dolls with broken plastic eyes in sealed hospital cells, but this was clean, no mold or black rot, pure dark blood in an unbroken line between them and that--that was its own kind of nonsensical, why would Maxwell deign to give such a **fetid, lowly thing** as himself something that--there was almost an _intimacy_ to it, he couldn't--

**Don't underestimate what** **_filth_ ** **he's already put inside you.**

The word wasn't a word, was the feeling of a worm-white scrawl of infection festering in hot clumps inside him, and he moaned softly.

"Easy, pal...easy." Maxwell chuckled without humor, and Wilson flinched as he laid one hand alongside his face, then leaned into it with a softer, less distinct sound. "It ain't pretty, but it'll get rid of your damned horse."

Wilson barked a single mute laugh into Maxwell's glove at that.  There wasn't getting _rid_ of the thing, not for good, but...but it went away for a while, it could be made to go away.  And it was.  The bird doctor was wherever he wasn't looking, just in the edge of sight, and he could see him turn to a silhouette that folded into itself, was gone with one of those godawful clicks.  The hooks weren't there anymore, disappearing with an equal lack of fanfare, and the room was hot and heavy and tired still, but in a contained way, without undefinable influence seeping through cracks in the ceiling or walls.

Undefinable.  Intangible.  Because it wasn't...

_It had never been there._

The realization was a shock to his system.  What the hell had he been thinking?  How long had he been humoring these delusions, half-curing them and believing he was chasing ghosts away?  And now he was here--really here, with _him_ , with _Maxwell_ , and he had been acting like a _child_ , a petulant useless _child_ \--

"Still there?"

He shook his head, trembling, a tic of black laughter playing at the corner of his mouth.  Nausea cinched his stomach again as the needle eased free, but he didn't care.  Being sick in front of him would have been better than this.  Being sick _on_ him would have been better than this.

"Heh."

Maxwell's tongue sliding over his wrist was an entirely different shock to his system, an electric bolt that exploded out through his chest into every nerve ending, doubled when he snapped his head back to look at him and caught a glimpse of his blood on Maxwell's lips before he licked them and _smirked_ and oh God maybe this wasn't real at all.

"Told you to trust me."

Wilson pulled his arm away, and Maxwell bared his teeth in--not quite anger, some emotion too complicated to pull apart with the air so heavy, and not something that seemed important in his sudden desperation.  He fumbled for the paper, mortification dripping down his back as he missed, overcompensating for the skewed angles his bad eye offered, _why did he have to be this useless when it was this important_ \--

Maxwell grabbed his hand again and he tried to protest, stopped as he placed it on the paper.  His snarl had faded, replaced by wary interest.  Wilson wrote three shaky words and pushed away a different kind of embarrassment as Maxwell took the page.

_I missed you._

As the silence stretched out, Wilson stared fixedly down at the shadow hands cradling him.  They were loathsome, needy things, almost as much as himself, starved for heat.  His leg was starting to tingle and twitch, a precursor to sensation returning, and it was going to be hell after how hard he had pushed himself to keep walking and he wanted to drag away the shadows to massage it but

" **_You're a thorn in my side, kid."_ **

but there was worse

**_"As soon as you can walk, get out.”_ **

there was a _worse kind of hell_ \--

The vicious memories fragmented as Maxwell dropped something onto Wilson's stomach, cold enough to sting, spilling across his chest, and he tensed away from him in skittish terror, tensed harder as Maxwell grabbed him back by the hair--

"Fuckin' romantic."

There was no malice in it.  Weariness, but no malice, half amused, almost _playful_ , and as Maxwell parted Wilson's lips to press something cool and sweet between them, he understood, sighing deeply as the ice touched his tongue.

"Slow _down_ , dammit--"

He yanked his hair again, not as hard this time, and Wilson hastily, guiltily finished swallowing, eyes watering as his battered throat seized up around the unmelted ice.  He opened his mouth wide as Maxwell picked up another chip and held it just out of reach, hopelessly pathetic but helpless not to.

"I can give you something to choke on later, don't worry about that, pet.   _Slow_."

He nodded, bright red, and closed his eyes as Maxwell pressed both ice and gloved fingers into his mouth, resting them on his tongue for a moment before sliding them free and cupping his face in his hand.  Wilson lolled his head against it drunkenly, inhaling the scent of smoke and dark flowers.  He had missed this, too, whatever "this" was, and he shivered as Maxwell stroked his cheek approvingly.

"Good boy."

Wilson's discomfort at the amount of ice that had found his way into his lap abruptly turned to gratitude.

"If you're done stating the obvious, we can get back to business."

He nodded and swallowed again, carefully this time, not before the ice had melted but before the precious mouthful of water went warm.  It was a small agony, and the taste of old, sour blood bloomed in the back of his mouth like a carrion flower.  He reached awkwardly for more, and Maxwell grabbed his arm.

"Oh, no, dear.  I said _business_." He redirected his hand to the pen."You give me the answers I need, and I'll indulge you with something to suck on."

The gratitude for the ice doubled, but beneath the spark in his stomach, something twisted.  He'd heard 'dear' too much lately.  He'd heard deer too much lately--

He banished the thought and nodded again, glancing up at Maxwell's self-satisfied grin and feeling strangely comforted by it.  It had been a long time since he had seen a smile not fueled by burning hate.

"Good.  Open up."

Wilson obeyed, and Maxwell's fingertips lingered longer on his tongue this time.  He made no move to reject them, savoring the taste of undiseased skin, and Maxwell's smirk widened before he settled back.

"Okay, pal." He studied him further, playfulness fading. "Had a hell of a time patching you up.  Anything hurt more than it should?"

There was a snide remark to be made there about how much any of this 'should' hurt, but it hurt too much to make it.  He took stock of himself instead, weighing injury against insult, and wrote slowly, rationing his words against the wet-rot pain of his shoulder gnawing further down into his arm.

_leg's bad_

"Worse than usual?"

Wilson paused, trying to remember what Maxwell knew, _how_ Maxwell knew, then shook his head.

In truth, that worried him vaguely.  It _should_ have been worse.  Oh, it hurt, it _crawled_ with hurt, like maggots in dry meat, but he had enough unfortunate experience to know that wasn't enough.  There had been too many nights spent curled into a tight ball, unable to move, unable to fathom anything but the vise he was being crushed in and to pray to gods he no longer believed in that he wouldn't be sick from it, because he would die if he was sick, because it was too hard to keep his stomach full as it was--

He wasn't hungry.

The thought had the heat and the intensity of sheet lightning, and it spread and split just as fast.  Had he been hungry when he woke up?  He couldn't remember, couldn't part the curtains on the fever dreams.  He could remember his last proper meal, if it could be called a proper meal, something horrible and sightless and multilegged dug out from beneath a rock, and that had been too long ago.

**Make covenants.  Don't make contracts.  Don't buy or sell teeth.**

The words came unbidden, unwanted, and Wilson thought about Maxwell's blood running in his veins and his blood, _their_ blood, ran cold.

Maxwell snapped his fingers by Wilson's left ear and he jerked toward the sound, heart leaping in his chest.  He didn't bother with the paper this time, glaring and mouthing a single word.

_"Don't."_

He narrowed his eyes in response, and Wilson quailed, raising a hand.  He hesitated, then put it over his blind eye, pointedly covering it, chest tight with disgust.

_"Please."_

"...sorry, kid." Maxwell's hand covered his, fingers twining, and he lowered it carefully. "Didn't mean anything by it.”

Wilson stared down, heart still fluttering in his chest.  The world seemed unsure again, a baited hook ready to skewer his tongue.  Maxwell’s touch was a panacea, his grip just tight enough to stop the tremors, and it was too good to be true.  He had suffered enough mirages after the light had gone, silhouettes of his master that led him astray before disappearing and leaving him lost and cold to the bone.  The dark, the cold…

_And what wouldn’t you give for that now?_

It wasn’t funny, but he laughed anyway, regretted it immediately as he doubled over into a harsh cough.  Maxwell was quick with the handkerchief, and perverse comfort bubbled up in him at the deep red stain that was already there.  Only reality _hurt_ this much.

“Deep breaths, pal.” Maxwell pushed Wilson back into a half-sitting position as the fit subsided, and he drew as much air into his lungs as he dared.  Maxwell took his face in one hand and he opened his mouth wide, eager for more ice, and flushed crimson as he inspected the back of his mouth instead.  Good God, was he really this easily _trained_?

“...looking better.” Maxwell let go of him and dropped the chip on his waiting tongue almost as an afterthought, and the agitation disappeared as Wilson let it slide down his throat, relief blossoming in its wake.  Yes.  Yes, he was.  Was there any point denying that now?

“Okay.  Next question.  What the hell did you do to your arm?”

It was a good question.  Wilson twitched the fingers of his broken arm in turn, considering.  There were...inconsistencies there, overlapping memories that couldn’t all be accurate.  He wrote down the one thing he was sure of.

_tripped -- > fox trap _

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “...and what the hell were you doing trying to trap foxes?”

Wilson furrowed his brow.  Maxwell _knew_ the world outside.  He was the one in control.  It wasn’t like he was shy about it, either--his devotion to Maxwell was so strong it frightened him a little, but not strong enough that he didn’t feel some amount of sympathetic embarrassment at the sheer number of...vanity pieces he had scattered across the layers.

Perhaps he had been unclear.  He started drawing a diagram, but Maxwell stopped him, irritated, before he could properly emphasize the sharpness of the metal teeth.

“I know what a...there shouldn’t have been anything like this out there.”

The statement rolled over a few times in Wilson’s mind.  What _should_ have been out there, then?  He _was_ the one in control.  He had chosen...

A snapshot memory ripped the forefront of his mind like wet paper, bones in the desert, bloody ribcages that rose up and stitched themselves together into dogs, flesh and fur growing impossibly even as buzzards pecked them back apart.  What about _that_ hell--and oh _God_ it had been _hell_ ...had Maxwell done that to him?  Had he chosen that?  It was too much, too cruel, he deserved to be punished, but not like that, not by remembering how his body had really been broken by seeing live teeth in a dry skull, _not like that_...

But the idea that he _hadn’t_ , that something _else_ had...

Wilson cradled his bad arm, shivering, trying not to think any further, trying not to think at all.

“Kid... _Wilson_.  Look.  The break ain’t that bad.  Hell, there are barely even any marks.  If you had landed in a fox trap, you’d still be dragging the damned thing.”

It took effort to unclench his hand, more effort to force himself to add a single diagonal line to the diagram and write next to it.

_walking stick caught it_

It was getting harder and harder to write, his fingertips losing feeling as his shoulder voiced disapproval, but damned if he was going to refer to it as a--

“Hmph.  I was gonna tell you you had better have a good fuckin’ reason not to be using a cane.”

Wilson winced and shifted uncomfortably, and Maxwell put the paper down.

“Listen, sweetheart.  You’ve been seeing things.  It’s fine.  Hell, I’d be surprised if you _didn’t_ go a little…” He caught the word, pushed it aside. “... _off_ , out in the dark.  The mind can pull some damned good tricks on the best of us, let alone you.”

His voice was smooth, easy, it was so easy to fall into it, let the sweetness and sting working together lull him.  It was the easiest thing in the world, it was all he wanted.  And it didn’t fit, Maxwell was right.  Maxwell was right.

Maxwell was wrong.  They both were.  What was _missing?_

Wilson pushed away the dissenting voice irritably.  He was tired of nonsense.  More than that, he was just tired.  All that had been keeping the exhaustion at bay was the fear of his dreams, and with that filed away, it was circling and snapping, threatening to bite.  The ridiculous bird he had hallucinated was right about one thing, it didn’t hurt asleep.

Didn’t it?

_Stop it._

He put a single slash through the diagram and laboriously penned a question mark in instead.  Maxwell glanced at him, and he shook his head helplessly.

"...fine." Maxwell picked up the soaked handkerchief. "What about this?"

Wilson hesitated before writing back a response.  More nonsense, this time, but only one memory, and one he didn’t want to dwell on.

_sick_

Maxwell didn't even take the paper, and Wilson flinched as he ran his gloved hand over his lips, gathering fresh blood. "Not that sick.  Making it worse, sure, you're doing a great job of that, but not that sick." He squirmed as Maxwell tilted his head back. "Try again.  How the hell did you tear yourself up this bad?"

Wilson swallowed painfully, trying not to shake his head.  If he wouldn't believe him about the traps, he definitely wouldn't believe him about berries that tasted fine and then changed when he swallowed, came up into his hand as bright-colored shards of glass with shreds of flesh hanging from the edges, tinged with the chemical stench of lye.  Everything after the sun had gone out had been a cruel deceit, and he had taken it as a test, but if Maxwell didn't know--if he hadn't known, if it was something _else_ that didn't fit--

Enough.  No more.  He didn't want to know.

He angled the paper awkwardly, slowly and painstakingly scratched out a half-truth.

_something I ate_

It was the right response.  Maxwell shook his head, picking out one of the last remaining pieces of ice from the rapidly diminishing pile on Wilson’s stomach, and there was contempt in his tone as he placed it on his tongue, but it was tinged with sympathy.

“Jesus, sweetheart...make it all the way down here and nearly choke to death on a bone.  You have the devil’s luck.”

It was a small mercy that Maxwell didn’t take the chance to make another uncouth allusion, and Wilson was more than slightly concerned that he had filled it in on his own.  It was much more concerning that his hand was nearly too stiff to move, the complexity of the last note an overspent effort.  He had forgotten to ask something and he could only hope the few letters he was able to get down in an oversized, childish scrawl made sense.

_heal?_

Maxwell mouthed the word to himself before it clicked. “You wanna know if it’ll heal?”

Wilson nodded nervously, and Maxwell laughed. “You’re not gonna be singin’ opera anytime soon, pal, but yeah, you’re gonna heal up just fine.” He ran a hand through Wilson’s hair and Wilson closed his eyes. “Told you I’d fix you up.”

There was something off there, something very slightly different, but Wilson couldn’t possibly care any less.  Every part of him ached or hurt or agonized, he was drenched in melted ice, the water already going warm from the fever-heat of his body, he was too weary to lift a pen, and none of it mattered.

It was over.  He was here.

He was _home_.

“Hey, pal.” Maxwell grabbed his good shoulder. “Not yet.”

Wilson dragged himself back from the edge of oblivion to the sight of the last of the ice cupped in Maxwell’s bare hand.  He opened his mouth for it.

Maxwell didn’t move.

After a long moment piecing it together, Wilson looked at Maxwell pleadingly.  He grinned widely in response.

“C’mon, pet.  You want it?  Take it.”

Some things, it seemed, didn’t change at all.

Trembling softly, heart thudding in his chest, Wilson lowered his head and drank from Maxwell’s hand like an animal, a hastily made promise he’d just take the ice breaking as fast as it was made as his throat burned for a last chance at water.  He lapped uselessly at the last of it, shivering at the low, appreciative growl Maxwell made as his tongue slid over his palm.

“Good boy.”

He would have told him to stop saying that if he could have spoken.  He _would_ have.

He could live with that thought, anyway.

Maxwell withdrew his hand before Wilson could make too much of a spectacle of himself--that would come later, he was sure--and he noticed the bright red dot on Maxwell’s wrist, remembered, shivered.   _Things that didn’t fit_.

“All right, pal.  Get your head down for a while.  God knows we both need it.”

Wilson closed his eyes with a grateful sigh and laid back, listening to the crackling of the fireplace.  He startled awake once as Maxwell began drying him off--good Lord, he had forgotten the sheer delight of actual towels--and settled as he laid the back of his hand across his forehead, muttered something disparaging.

Safe.  Home.  Safe as houses.

**houses aren’t safe**

Sleep folded over him like desert frost.

 

\------

 

Maxwell didn’t think about the conversation they had just had, if it could be called conversation, as he replaced freshly cooled thermal stones, checked his pet’s bandages, his breathing, his bloodflow.  His pulse was thready, but clear.  He had spent too much of the night nearly losing it, thoughts cycling endlessly, nonsensically between the urge to get a mirror to put to his lips and the image of coming back with it and his last breath having passed already.  Both notions angered him in retrospect, there was nothing in being by the ridiculous little man’s side that would keep him from dying if he was going to die, it wasn’t…

He sighed heavily, irritation growing.   _He_ wasn’t the one that was supposed to be concerned with ‘logical’.

It wasn’t his fault.  Maxwell didn’t need to sleep, _couldn’t_ sleep in a conventional sense, but he needed rest.  He had already been overtired when he had pulled the stray dog out of the rain, and _he_ hadn’t helped things by…

Didn’t need to think about it.

Wilson didn’t stir as he felt his forehead again, and that was a relief even if the persistent heat wasn’t.  The ice had helped, but the fever was as stubborn as its host, and just as unwilling to break.

Thankfully, Maxwell had a talent for breaking things.

The transfusion-- _infusion_ \--had been a risky move.  It had also been the right one.  Wilson’s skin was dry, but it no longer felt disconcertingly fragile beneath Maxwell’s fingertips, and his breathing was easing as the gashes in his throat slowly, slowly closed themselves together.  Maxwell couldn’t swear any longer as to how much of what ran in his veins was blood and how much was fuel, but it was enough of the latter, just enough to start the changes that would keep him safe down here.  Clearing away the godawful delirium was a small bonus, comparatively speaking.

Well...maybe not that small.

He had kept watch over Wilson for as much of the descent as he could, closer watch after the intrepid explorer had _oh-so-kindly_ gone after an unneeded fragment of Maxwell’s past and shattered his skull.  The price for patching up _that_ little disaster had been more than he was able to-- _willing_ _to_ pay a second time, and he didn’t intercede again, analyzing each new injury instead, gathering and conjuring and laying out the tools he’d need to treat it.  When the last door closed and took any trace of Wilson with it into the dark, he had doubled his efforts, pushing away the dull, sour taste of the waiting by preparing for everything and anything possible.

Oh, but you couldn’t plan for _everything_ though, could you?

Wilson was flirting with death by the time Maxwell had finally opened the door to him--actually to him, not to another false alarm of _thinking_ he was there, too damned many of those--and he had been prepared for that.

He hadn’t been prepared for the rabbit-screaming.  He hadn’t been prepared for the humorless laughter, or the wild tracking of Wilson’s dead eye, or the sharp, dry voice that seemed to speak _through_ him, too strong and self-satisfied for the thin, frail frame it overflowed from, that it seemed to be trying to use up.

It wasn’t anything unusual, of course.  He knew what the shadows could do to a person, knew more than anyone should, for God’s sake, and the fever on top of that, he couldn’t bring himself to blame him for acting out, but…

“ _Butcher!  Murderer!  You’ll be sharpening your knives after me next!_ ”

But…

“ **_Terrible luck, isn’t it?  Another failure.  Nothing new, I expect.  What would you like to try next, my dear?  Or are you giving up again?_ ** ”

Didn’t bear thinking about.  Didn’t bear thinking about him bursting into terrified tears out of a sound sleep and sobbing at him about herons.  Didn’t bear thinking about him smiling blankly as Maxwell set his broken arm and asking vicious questions in that eerily cordial voice, or how that had changed in an instant into panicked thrashing at the pain _after the pain was over_ , didn’t bear thinking about the insubordination of the shadows that had tried to pull him away at the last second…

No.  No, that one bore thinking about, once he’d had a break.  That was his own fault, letting his control slip while he was preoccupied.  He had simply stretched himself too thin.  Once he rallied, he’d be holding the reins as tightly as ever.  The rest was the rambling of a caged animal crazed with fear and infection.  It had been as bad last time.  Hell, it had been _worse_ last time.

Christ, he wished he had conjured more nitrous.

Maxwell lit a cigar and sifted through the papers, grimacing at how quickly the handwriting degenerated.   _They_ had defeated every effort he had made to set Wilson’s injuries straight after Maxwell had claimed him, had forced him to return the poor bastard to the surface lame and half-blind, and he doubted _They_ ’d change their minds anytime soon.  It had been bad enough not being able to do anything but watch him struggle to cope during his long descent, and then as soon as he was out of Maxwell’s sight, the _genius_ had to go and make it worse by breaking his _good_ arm somehow--

Maxwell stopped.

The source of Wilson’s injuries weren’t important.  The business with the paper was a test of his mental state, and anything Maxwell could have asked would have given him the same answer--confused, delusions clinging to him like cobwebs, and doggedly, damnedly sentimental despite it all.  He had been mildly curious, but there was nothing unexpected in the jumbled responses he had gotten back.

Close to nothing.

It had been the last thing on his mind while he was trying to piece his pet back together, something he had filed away as unimportant next to a killing fever and ranting about hospitals, but thinking back...

Taking a deep drag on his cigar, Maxwell tilted the sketch of the fox trap.

There were plenty of things to blame the grotesque semi-circle of bruises across Wilson’s arm on.  Maxwell’s creations liked to bite.  Likewise, he could chalk up the relative lack of injury to any number of factors--makeshift armor, a stalled blow, a young or weakened hound--

\--he hated hounds, didn’t he?--

\--but despite his best efforts, Maxwell had to admit that there was something deeply wrong with his pet’s diagram.

Specifically, it made sense.

_Don’t be a bloody fucking idiot_.

Maxwell sighed out smoke and put the papers aside.  He had placed traps in the darkness, yes, long ago, long before an overzealous voice coming through the phonograph had made things _difficult_ , back when the only important thing was making sure the center held.  And he had made sure every single one of the damned things was disabled before that difficulty had a chance to stumble into every single one of them, one after the other, because learning from mistakes wasn’t in Wilson’s curriculum.  He had lost a full day paying the price for it, and that wasn’t the kind of pain he could possibly forget.

More importantly, he had never placed fox traps.  They were...not unsporting, strictly speaking, a clever animal could free itself one way or another, it was just a matter of…

No, there was only one way, wasn’t there.

Didn’t bear thinking about.

Goddammit, _none_ of it bore thinking about.  So it had been a trap?  So be it.  The pigs were getting smarter.  Wilson wasn’t.  Only one of those things was any surprise.

God, he needed to stop thinking for a while.

Maxwell dissolved the rest of his cigar with the wave of a hand and stood, wincing as his back protested.  Wilson didn’t stir, but he wasn’t as deathly still as he had been at his worst--his breathing was close to even, now, and his lips moved soundlessly in his sleep, narrating some nightmare to himself.  If he cared to, Maxwell could probably make out what he was saying.  He didn’t.

He opened the door, and immediately brought one leg up to stop his pet’s pet from barreling straight onto the bed.

“Sit.  Stay.  Be a good watchdog.  Watch.”

Chester whined, but sat down obediently, lack of eyes faithfully trained on her master.

“Heh.  Good to see _someone_ around here listens.”

Chester wagged her tail winningly.

Maxwell scratched her absently behind the horns, glancing at the papers one last time, and paused, this time on a different page.

_I missed you._

“Fuckin’...”

He didn’t finish.

At length, he folded the paper and palmed it, slipping it into one sleeve.

  
Head aching and heavy with a million thoughts that didn’t bear thinking, he disappeared into the darkness.


	2. Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This cinnamon stick is a wonderful magic stick  
> Imagine that you're drowning in the sweetest syrups  
> Dreams relieve you of problems and sorrows that make you weep  
> Because they are heaven-made, have one and fall asleep  
> But they're only good if you are surrounded by hallucinations  
> When you take the blindfold off, there's no more pleasant creations  
> \--trick and treat, English translation by RENA

**“He’s worth a half, at least.”**

What had been shadows had become sheets had become skin, stitched down over him into the gurney, and this wasn’t something Maxwell had gifted Wilson or that Maxwell could take away.  Wilson wasn’t alone, wasn’t part of the rank and file either, was pushed away from the silent line of patients of lab rats lying still still _still_ in a row by the Machines, and he was as silent and as still but something in him knew he didn’t have to be, and he didn’t have one of their masks, thank God, thank _God._

**“Even the trade.  One of your broken charges for mine."**

“We can’t arrange that, sir, you know how it is.”

The bird doctor was putting a price on his head.  Not his head.  Parts of him, pieced out calmly in this soundless slaughterhouse, sent down the line, except that wasn’t what these belts were for, oh no, unless this was the end result of the butchering, and who was to say--

“Don’t let your impeccable manners fail you, either.  You know _my_ charges aren’t broken.” The person-- _thing_ \--the bird was bargaining with--Wilson couldn’t see it, couldn’t stand to see it, but whatever it was, it laughed, and the sound was melodious as a carnival. “They are wonderful, beautiful, every one, and the alterations simply add to their sweetness.  I don’t fix children, Corporal DuWhite, I fix problems.”

There weren’t any children here.

There were the Machines, bookending the long hall, the conveyor belt connecting them umbilical and breathing beneath the metal, ferrying yellow stink to tubes that led to gas masks that led to stitched-down bodies, all silent, all still, all living, and who was to say that the fetid rot it fed them _wasn’t_ human?  Fat, bone--infection, the taste of a bloody cough--

 **“Absolutely no one holds greater admiration for your alterations than myself, I’m sure, which is why I am** **_quite_ ** **sure you could find worth even in this waste of mother’s love.”**

The Corporal’s voice never wavered from charming, and the lilt over the offhand statement of his uselessness broke Wilson’s paralysis, set his eyes burning.  He didn’t know-- _couldn’t_ know--

“No mother’s love is wasted, bastard.” The rotting thing had no more true emotion in its voice than the bird doctor, calm and detached as it began to move oh God they were _moving_ , starting to come down the line toward him, the rot-creature adjusting masks and tanned-hide straitjackets with the care of a gardener tending blue flowers. “Jealousy does suit you, sir, but don’t let it distract from the business at hand.”

 **“So there** **_is_ ** **business.”** He punctuated with one of those godawful **tch** noises, bone on bone. **“Excellent.  You don’t even have to be rid of him, have it done as you like, just leave the carcass to me.”**

“You know that isn’t the business I’m speaking of, sir.  Finish out the job and you’ll be free of this burden.”

The leaking beast stopped and disconnected a mask, and the tubing rolled back into itself and away like a hound’s tongue, with as many teeth.

Oh God, he needed to get out.  This was his pit, this was his pendulum, and there were no rats here to make use of.  Which arm was unbound?

**“I’ll even let you keep the eyes.  They aren’t of any consequence.”**

“Just a half, again…”

 **“You care about his state** **_now?_ ** **”**

It was the closest the Corporal had come to irritation, and it untethered the invisible bonds in Wilson’s mind.   _Mind_.  It was all in his mind.  They were invisible because they weren’t _there_.  He had pulled free before.   _Pushed_ free before.  If he just focused on the hide not being there and _shoved--_

Wilson rolled to the floor, and it didn’t make a sound, and it didn’t hurt, and it was awful.  He didn’t have to breathe, but he tried to catch his breath, staring fixedly at a pinkish liquid smear on the floor that smelled raw and ferric, close to his eye.  He closed his eyes.  He still saw.

**“I can finish the contract either way, and you’ll have your quilting.”**

There was a window.  It didn’t make sense, should have been a grate, a vent, but no, a window, at floor level, leading into the machine’s guts.  It was small, but it was safe.  Windows were _safe_.

**“Don’t you think it’s a shame that’s all you think about?”**

“And where is it you think _you_ can go after?”

It was so much effort, every time, the frame catching at his shoulders--

“You are a traitor and a disgrace to your kind.”

**_Tch._ **

“You make yourself what you are.”

**“She has sympathy for you.”**

Wilson stopped, frozen. Not by the sudden hatred--not secondhand hatred, but real contempt, bitter bile dripping from every bone-click word--but from the _honesty_ of it.  There wasn’t a trace of deceit in the false doctor’s tone.

“He tries sympathy on everyone.”

He shook it off, struggled through clutching metal, and the last he heard before breaking free of raw antiseptic stench was a soft, self-directed mutter from the rotting man.

“You never do care to ask why it doesn’t fit on you.”

The grate snapped shut like metal jaws behind him, and he pulled himself up and started to run.

It was only a matter of time before they noticed, a matter of time before they came searching, and they knew where to find him when Maxwell didn’t.  That was the secret of the darkness, wasn’t it?  It was who was in the dark.  So keep moving, keep running the best you could, beneath the blank sky and among the traps, you had to be careful because of the traps, everything was a trap and everything was filled with traps, and he was tripping straight into one again, arms outstretched, and he realized in blind panic that he didn’t _have_ his cane to catch it and the teeth were so _sharp_ **_you’d still be dragging it--_ **

Bone shattered with a noise that was too familiar by half, and there was no pain, and suddenly Wilson was awake.

No.

Not awake.

_Aware._

The fog of panic and confusion was gone, and Wilson laid on the ground, panting, staring wildly ahead at the fox trap that was bloody-bruising his arm, just barely stopped from crushing down on it by a long, thin limb.  He could smell dirt and blood and thick animal musk, sweat in the fur of the broken leg that had saved him.

Wilson looked up at the deer, and it grinned down at him, the flesh cut away from its mouth showing rows of even teeth.  A single drop of blood rolled from the hole in its head, down its snout, and fell on his face.

This was…

“Th-this was how it hhh, happened,” Wilson murmured, blinking the blood away.

“You remember.”

It wasn’t a voice he could hear, strictly, but words drawn in blue chalk on the darkness, brightening and then fading away.

He remembered.  He remembered not questioning, but carefully, _carefully_ putting all his weight into spreading the cruel jaws of the trap, his shoulder screaming protest and seeming to _crawl_ with pain from the effort, actually _crawl_ as if it was infested, but not giving up until he was able to set the latch with a badly shaking hand, remembered his heart seizing as he thought it was about to go off again and damn them _both_ to this hell--

But for the second time, it clicked open, the teeth muzzled away, and for the second time, the stag didn’t withdraw until after Wilson had, leaning unsteadily on three hooves as Wilson curled in on himself, smothering the pain with equations, formulas, blueprints, anything he could think of to let it drift away in.  This time, closing his eyes worked.

“Andrew.”

It was another glowing word in the dark, and Wilson listened to the unsteady, barely-there footfalls of the stag retreating before opening his eyes.

He remembered the deer, fully skeletal now, the top of its head bloody where bone and antlers had been imprecisely sawn away by careless hands.  The skull had nothing but blood inside, but the red pond was bottomless, forever brimming to the absolute top, steadily trickling over, slowly, slowly.

He didn’t remember the little girl, or the soft sound of water falling on her coat, hair dripping wet where she had pushed her hood away.

It wasn’t raining.

Chester wasn’t there, but he remembered using her to pull himself up, so he used that feel of her, rising awkwardly to his knees, and he flinched back as the deer whipped around and clacked its teeth.

“ _Andrew_.”

The grinning deer-- _Andrew_ \--looked back to her, blood running down to stain one of its empty sockets.  He had forgotten, because so many things had happened in the dark, so many lies and deceits, but…

“You remember.”

Wilson swallowed and nodded, gripping his broken arm tight against his chest, voice a bare whisper. “I r-remember.”

The little girl didn’t respond, her face blank.  She was carrying flowers--long-stemmed purple irises--and the stag leaned down to let her carefully place them in his wound, fleeting, sweet replacements for what had been taken.

“I-it--you-- _he_ s-stopped the trap, he…” Wilson hugged himself tighter. “...I w-would have...w-would have died there--”

“No.”

No.  No, dear Christ, she was right, he wouldn’t have, he would have kept going the only way he knew how, or tried to.  They _both_ would have had something sawn away.

The idea made his stomach turn, and he swallowed again, clutching his head.  “ _Why?_ ”

She was silent again, and the deer...changed.  Was, and then wasn’t, not shifting shape but simply becoming something different, the way dreams did.

Andrew was still grinning as he stood over Wilson, human now but the hole in his head still there, an acrid-smelling exit wound, his blank smile burning with secondhand hatred, and Wilson flinched badly as he reached out a hand toward him.  Why did everything _hate--_

“No.” Then: “Look.”

Wilson obeyed, trembling.

The nightmare man was holding out his eyepatch.

Another memory bloomed out--these weren’t like remembering Maxwell, not carefully slotted fragments, cut fine and analytical for him to examine, but bright bursts of _knowing_ \--the memory of fumbling to tie the silk double-tight around the stag’s leg while a voice in his head that was shrill and familiar and not just his own screamed _kill it kill it skin it and eat it kill the damned thing,_ how that had been the only reason he _hadn’t,_ everything had told him it would be a kindness to put it out of its misery and a boon he couldn’t survive without, but that _voice…_

_Had he only heard it that once?_

The little girl was watching him, face blank still.  He took the eyepatch, and the dead man’s hand was warm.

“Th-thank you,” he whispered. “...Andrew.  Y-your name is…” Wilson swallowed and attempted something like a smile, tamping down a different kind of internal screaming to look up into the grinning man’s eyes. “...y-your name is Andrew.  And...y-you...th-thank you.”

The deer was back again, skeletal, grinning, but passive, and it exhaled softly in acceptance, the floral crown rustling in the wind.

“...oh G-God.  This... _h-happened._  This...c-can’t have happened, how could--wh-why would you--” Wilson tore nervously at his hair, resenting the ability to think straight again. “I--I’m n-not crazy s-so this can’t--I d-don’t--”

“Shh.” The girl touched the deer’s back lightly and then walked to Wilson.  She was...small, he wasn’t entirely sure how children worked, but she likely wasn’t more than five years old, dark-haired, dark-skinned, dark-eyed.  She was carrying a lidded pail in one hand, and it was raining where she was, a cool mist just barely touching his face as she leaned close.

“Wilson.”

Her lips didn’t move when she spoke, but he heard the words, saw them, felt them, a gentle but compelling blue glow.

“H-how--no one--n-nothing else here knows my n-n-n-n--”

“Names are important.”

 _Knowing_ filled in around the few words each time the girl spoke, the way it did in dreams--that made enough sense, he supposed, he was dreaming, awake in a dream, and it was somehow real, real enough that he couldn’t question how deadly serious it was.  Names _were_ important, he had thought as much awake, and Andrew--

She kept repeating it, and it changed him.  Again, when _he_ said it.  Names were important.  And Andrew had lost his, and it had had to be found again, and it had changed him when it did.  He slipped into forgetfulness and had to be reminded, he had lost it that badly--how did you lose a name?

You had it taken from you, that was how.  Things were taken away here.  He thought of the bodies, the machines, the rotting man, and groaned softly as carousel music ghosted through the air.

“Wh-where are the--where are the _children?”_

“They aren’t your story.”

 _Story_ felt like _narrative,_ and he didn’t understand either, but it wasn’t what she was concerned about, and that was...some form of solace.

“Listen.  Remember.  Make covenants.  Don’t--”

“Make covenants, don’t make contracts, don’t buy or sell t-t-t--teeth,” The response was so automatic that the clumsiness of his tongue barely touched it. “How--h-how many times have we d, done this?  I’ve hhhh, had this dream b-b-b-b-- _before,_ haven’t I?”

“Six times.”

Imagining the repetition twisted something inside him that felt _ugly_ somehow, dark grey rot. “What...what d-do you w, want from me?  I...I d-don’t...I’m _useless,_ I c-can’t--”

**“Ah, my dear, you’ve come to an understanding about your value.  That will make this so much easier.”**

Wilson curled in on himself, sobbed out a soundless _no_ as he felt the bird doctor approach, and Andrew was by his side suddenly, silently, hate boiling off of him in waves.

**_Tch._ **

The sound was more damning than ever, rolling bitter and thick down Wilson’s back, but it was the only thing crawling on him.  He had stopped.  The godawful thing had _stopped._

 **“I see the arbiter has arrived.  So this is how you choose your company.  I can’t blame you at all on this horrid broken** **_pestilence,_ ** **I can certainly understand how you see a resemblance, but that half-drowned packrat is…”**

The Corporal didn’t finish the sentence, clicking his bill again contemptuously.

 _Couldn’t_ finish the sentence.  There had been a hesitation, a pause.

That had never happened before.

“It’s me.”

The little girl put a small damp hand on Wilson’s cheek--it was already damp, he was crying, he could cry here, that was ridiculous, useless--and he raised his head.  Her expression was unchanging, and he realized she _couldn’t_ change it, that that was one of the absurd rules that burdened her because they were _all_ burdened by something down here, but her face was human, her eyes real and not unkind.

“He lies.  But not if I’m here.”

Something in him wanted to explain things to her, that she was just a little girl, that she couldn’t possibly hold any sway over this goddamned monstrosity that was stalking him.  It was a very small something, pushed back into its irritable, overbearing corner by the sight of Andrew’s ditch-flower antlers in the corner of his eye.

She was a little girl, and she knew damned well what she was doing, whatever it was.

 **“You wound me, both of you.  Could I be any more honest when it comes to the** **_important_ ** **things, little lost child?”**

“No.” She looked more intensely at Wilson, a _that’s important_ emphasis, and he wished in vain for his diary.  Everything was important, suddenly, everything needed to be remembered, and he couldn’t trust himself to do it.

 **“You see?  As much as you see anything, I suppose.”** The Corporal himself didn’t make any attempt to move into his line of sight, and that was no surprise, his entire being was made up of periphery, of overtaking everything but what was right in front of his favored prey, of wanting _not_ to be seen. **“Isn’t that what your** **_last_ ** **choice of alliance got you?  This pathetic** **_husk_ ** **you ride around?”**

“M-Maxwell didn’t do th-this.” The sudden strength in his voice surprised him, wavering or not.

 **“Do you think he’d care if he did?** **_I_ ** **care, my dear.”** The voice was on top of him all at once, liquid and smooth as hebenon in his ear, sluicing ice water through his lungs, and Wilson knew that if it touched him he would be _disappeared_ , simply _erased--_

The grinning man was a wreck of bone and tendon and antler and flesh as he struck, as he sank his jaws and fingertips deep into rotting flesh and _ripped,_ and what was behind Wilson fell away, something horrible dragged into the light tight between grinding teeth, and oh God, the understanding hollowed him to the core, spread the cold out from his chest in waves.

 **“Damn you.** ”

The Corporal’s tone was detached as ever, somewhere between amusement and irritation as he was dropped to the ground, a snarl of lashing, fleshy spine ending in the black bird head.  The body he had been torn from was already mouldering into thick rot.

**“I was particular to that vessel.”**

_This was what he wanted._

**“Oh, calm down, be a** **_man._ ** **What would they say to see you** **_weeping?_ ** **And so** **_proud_** **, to think I would want such a nasty** **_wreck_ ** **as you.  Didn’t they tell you it goes before a fall, my dear?  Now, I do have friends who aren’t at all particular, I could piece you out so easily, bones and pelt alike--”**

Something that was half hoof and half mud-stained shoe came down on the bird doctor’s crawling bones, and Wilson’s tears turned to laughter by hard-won habit, intense and empty as the whirling of the abomination’s monochrome eyes.  It didn’t stop him, didn’t so much as change the even pace of his words.

 **“I might even have a buyer for your eyes, wretched as they are.  Oh, seeker, it would be so much** **_easier_ ** **than what’s in store for you if you don’t.  If you think that’s a lie…”**

It was more songbird chatter than laughter, jarringly sweet from the hollow thing, and Wilson clutched at his head with frostbitten fingers, his breath running out and the hysteria dying with it, turning to a fast tic at the corner of his mouth.

“Enough.” The little girl took his hands, urgently. “Wilson.”

**“Ask her.  Ask her if it’s a lie.  Little wolf in sheep’s clothing, you already trust her, don’t you?”**

Wilson looked up searchingly, and there was a pause before she nodded.  He shut his eyes tightly, grasping at relief, finding none.

 **“Do you see?  Do you think you have the** **_strength_ ** **to fight?  You said it yourself.  What did you say you are, dear?”**

“U-useless,” he muttered automatically, overwhelmed, hurting deeper than fractured bones.

“No.”

He didn’t respond, trembling mutely, teeth chattering.  He didn’t want this to be happening.  If it really was a dream, he could make it not be happening, could turn back time, undo everything.  He’d done it in countless nightmares, simply made the monsters go away.

This was a dream.  But it was also reality.  And he was helpless to…

He wasn’t helpless to stop it.

That was the point, he realized.  If he was helpless, he would have simply been swallowed up and cut apart to begin with.  Why else would the soldier be bargaining, not just with the creatures of this world, but with Wilson himself?

Whatever the bird doctor wanted to do to him, he needed his permission.

He needed a _contract._

Wilson opened his eyes.

The little girl stared back.

He opened his mouth, then tilted his head questioningly.

“Renee.”

It was a name he knew he had heard before, and a name he knew he’d forget again, but he nodded.

“R-R-R-R-- _Renee._  ...wh-what do I…?”

She looked to one side, and he followed her gaze to her bait bucket.  The lid had been opened up, and the inside was a tangle of objects--bits of colored glass and frogspawn and a pair of eyes the same shade as Andrew’s, smooth rocks and bright berries, and most of all, shining white, there were teeth.

“Given freely.”

She was right.  The Corporal hadn’t lied.

 **_“Idiot._ ** **This is your last chance, don’t you realize?  I can’t stall any longer.  Let me put you into the silence.  So much easier for** **_everyone._ ** **Aren’t you tired of being a burden to everyone your poisonous little life touches?  Don’t you know they’d be** **_happier_ ** **with you gone?  Selfish, spoiled** **_brat!”_ **

The words were the hooks, he realized.  The words were what swung and skewered on rusted chains and ripped away at him, piece by piece.

No wonder it was so familiar.

The cold was getting worse, and Wilson had to force the chill into another part of his body to unclench chattering teeth, will it down into his legs.  He reached into his mouth and touched a molar he knew wasn’t there, that he had lost on his last night on Earth.  When he looked to Renee, she nodded.

Wilson clutched the tooth hard between two fingers and _pulled--_

As the image of the tooth tearing away in his hand, trailing blood and flesh and froth, faded in a snapshot burst of inverted color and a shriek of radio static, Wilson realized three things at once: He was awake, he was in agony, and despite the thick blanket thrown over him, he was freezing to death.

It wasn’t a new feeling, even before worlds of endless winter he had been overly susceptible to the cold, but every time it happened, he forgot how bad it was until it happened again.  The acid burning in quivering, overtaxed muscles was only unbearable until he had borne it, but that was no comfort when that moment of _I-can’t-stand-this_ was the moment of _now_ , his teeth not chattering but clacking on each other as violently as the bird soldier’s reprimands.  His body was locked up, burning, and it felt bigger than he was, a cage of flesh and bone trapping whatever scraps of what _he_ was inside--everything was traps down here, _everything_ \--

“Wilson?”

He was afraid of the voice for a moment, tried to catch at why, but it dissolved immediately at the sound of Maxwell’s boots in the hall, and he turned hazily toward where he thought there might be a doorway, willing the cold down into his arms long enough to speak.

“M--Maxwell--”

It was a small sound despite the force he tried to put behind it, almost swallowed up, but Maxwell was already at his side, kneeling on the bed next to him.

“Hold still.”

Wilson did his best to oblige, but gasped soundlessly as he pulled the blanket off, eyes burning at the sting of open air despite the roaring fire, he couldn’t get through this _he was going to die--_

Then he was sunk into soft fur, not fever- or fire-hot but sunlight-warm, and as Maxwell wrapped his coat tighter around him, Wilson exhaled what used-up breath had been cycling, trapped in his lungs, realizing that some of that heat was _his_ and wondering at that even as the harsh shaking began to subside to fitful shivering.  He surrendered to it, closing his eyes and pressing his face into the thick white ruff, dream children and the spectres that governed them melting away as he breathed in Maxwell’s dark-flower scent.

“Mmm.”

Maxwell grinned at the tiny sigh and carded a hand through Wilson’s hair, earning another.  “Better?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You look it.” Maxwell stood and tilted Wilson’s head back, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Actually, you look like hell.  Back to normal, in other words.”

Wilson shifted uncomfortably and turned away, hugging himself beneath the coat.  He wanted nothing more than to let the touch draw out forever, but consciousness had brought self-consciousness with it.  He swallowed and tried speaking again.

“M--M-Maxwell?”

It was hoarse, and it stung a little, tasted of old blood, but it was nothing compared to the crystal-sharp pain of…

Wilson furrowed his brow.  Had he improved that much in one night?  He squeezed his broken arm on impulse and hissed under his breath--no, not _that_ much.  Although it didn’t shift, didn’t crackle unpleasantly...

 _“What_ are you trying to do here, exactly?” Maxwell didn’t sound as tired as he had last...before Wilson had slept, but weariness was creeping into his tone.  Wilson shook his head quickly, flustered, and put scientific observation aside.

“J-j--j--juh-- _just_ my--I d-don’t have--I nnnn, n-need--”

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “Spit it out, pal.”

A tic worked at the corner of Wilson’s mouth, and he managed to sort the words, push them through. “--eyep-p-patches.  I’m.  Out.”

Wilson flinched slightly as Maxwell took his face in his hand, flinched badly as he used the tip of his thumb to gently press back the lid of his bad eye. _“--d-don’t--”_

“Shhhh…”

Wilson bit his lip, putting all of his will into not squirming as Maxwell tilted his face one way, then the other, and sighed audibly as he let go.

“Damage is done, sweetheart.  It’s not gonna get any worse.”

“That’s nnn-- _not_ the p-point, I--” Wilson closed both eyes and whimpered through clenched teeth. _“M-Maxwell.  Please.”_

As the silence drew out, Wilson cradled himself in the dark behind his eyes, and when Maxwell finally spoke, it was just as abridged. “Later.”

Wilson hazarded a glance up, saw no particular emotion in his master’s eyes. “Luh--l-later?”

“You’re filthy, pal.  Did the best I could without disturbing you, but you were pretty goddamned disturbed.” Maxwell cracked a grin, finally, watching the dawning realization in Wilson’s eyes. “Oh, don’t worry, pet, I was _absolutely_ professional.”

Wilson responded with a stifled groan, face hot, but the realization that Maxwell wasn’t lying settled over him like jigsaw pieces fitting together, each one a strange jolt of emotion.  The memories of what had happened after Maxwell had torn the infection from his shoulder were hazed, prone to fading in and out of his recollection, and double-sided, double-shadowed, but if he focused, he could remember him caring for him, easing him back to health and some measure of dignity.  It had been the change in him that he had fervently chased after, the abrupt snap from what he had become into what he had _been._

It hadn’t been the only time.

Slowly, Wilson ran his thumb over his fingernails.  They had been cracked, bloody, dirt pushed painfully under them from digging for...what passed for food, in the last days, but they hadn’t crossed his mind in the blanket of hurt he had awoken in.

His fingertips were neatly bandaged.

“A-are you?”

It was abrupt, and Maxwell blinked. “Come again?”

Wilson closed his hand. “A p, professional.” He hesitated, then tried again. “...d-do you...ih, is this wh-what you did?  M-medicine?”

It took a moment for Maxwell to catch up, and when he did, it seemed to catch him off guard. “...I studied.  Didn’t take to it.” He grinned again, but it wasn’t nearly as bright. “You think a fish as big as me would be caught swimmin’ in a pond that small?”

“Please d-d-don’t say ‘pond’,” Wilson mumbled, then shook his head quickly.  _No._  It was just a dream.  Just a…

Not just a dream and he knew it, but it could _wait,_ goddammit, was that too much to ask?

If Maxwell had a comment, he withheld it. “Can you walk?”

Wilson sank down further in Maxwell’s coat, face hot for entirely different reasons.  The dark cloud of pain had dissipated...almost _too_ much, he could only believe now that he had slept for days, or else forgotten waking, but some things stayed the same.  The scar on his leg was burning all the way down his ankle, up into his thigh, and he massaged it awkwardly.

“C’mon, kid, don’t be like that.  It’s just war wounds.” He chuckled, and again, there wasn’t much light to it. “We’ve all got ‘em.”

Wilson tried, briefly, to imagine what his master might have for ‘war wounds’.  He was sure the man was at least ten years his senior, maybe fifteen by the touches of grey around the nape of his neck, but he was powerful, lithe, the picture of health and strength where Wilson was the picture of...a child’s drawing, perhaps, crumpled and tossed away.  He was _immaculate._

And he had given him his coat, and his blood, and he had kept him from breaking himself to pieces in restless dreams.

He had given him back his name.

“...cuh, c-could t-t-t-try,” he said, finally.  After another pause, his voice lower, he mumbled, “...w-wouldn’t...b-be a g, good idea.”

“Heh.  You _can_ be taught.”

Wilson almost raised objection to that, clamped down on it with a sound shamefully close to a squeak as Maxwell picked him up, lifting him easily enough to make Wilson doubt his age again. “Th-this is n-n-n- _not_ what I ih, intended--”

“Don’t argue, pet.  I may have more...convenient methods of travel, but they’re gluttons for heat.” Wilson shuddered at the thought of icy shadow hands and huddled deeper into white and brown fur. “Gonna keep ‘em off of you until you’re at least warm enough to talk straight again."

Wilson closed his eyes silently.  He was still chilled to the bone, but he had stopped shivering some time ago.

Why did everything have to be so hard to explain?

He let the thought drop away, the moment too sweet to be spoiled by it.  He felt safe wrapped in Maxwell’s arms, held tightly, sheltered against the cold and the dark.

He felt _safe._

An image turned in his head, a flipped coin, two equal sides, casting light and shadow at the same time--

A flipped tooth, reflecting in the firelight, equal in that it was all bone, but split and skewed, jagged, unforgiving, cracked down the center--

“Keep it together, pal.” Maxwell tightened his grip as Wilson started shivering again. “Gonna get you warmed up.”

He breathed deep, smoke and dark flowers and the slightest hint of animal musk.  He counted the thoughts away, on his fingertips this time, touching each bandage in turn and taking strength from the tiny, contained press of pain at each.

“Th-thank you, M, Maxwell.”

“Heh.” He sounded pleased again, and the last of the tension eased from Wilson’s shoulders. “I’ll take it out of your hide.”

Thinking about anything but hides, anything but pelts, Wilson rested his head on Maxwell’s chest and let himself drift in the sublime simplicity of _now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should have been out sooner. I mean, a lot sooner, like two years sooner, but I'm awful at doing things in sequence. In any case, this begins the phase of asking questions that have already been answered, and answering questions that are still being asked.
> 
> The epigraph from this chapter is a particular translation of the Vocaloid song "trick and treat" by Oster Project, which can be found here: https://youtu.be/Pb6fSiMBbv4 I've been in love with it since 2010, but it became especially pertinent when I joined the Don't Starve fandom. The translator being called RENA is something of an uneasy coincidence.
> 
> For those familiar with my original horror/creepypasta, you may recognize the Problems Man tending the machines. I was unaware he was tied into Wilson's story until scripting the conversation the Corporal was having and thinking about who was on the other side of it. I believe this is the only place he makes contact, but as may be obvious, I'm never sure with this bloody thing.
> 
> If you're wondering where this stuff comes from, I have spent some time Unwell and I have Nightmares. It's a long series of stories, and I'd like to focus on finishing this one first.
> 
> Thanks for this chapter: Crow, ever my dearest muse, beta reader, and provider of work music
> 
> Choice Note From ephemera.txt For the Chapter:  
> "Wilson calls Renee a few years old in Flipping the Board and places her at five here how tf old is she actually what did I put her down as"  
> "Nine"  
> "Wilson ffs learn how to a child"


	3. Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll say a word for sickness, she is my favorite mistress  
> Yes she knows my body like no other can  
> My flesh and spirit keep colliding when her fingers are inside me  
> Oh my God oh my God lady I'm your man  
> Fever flu malaria come near me do not spare me  
> I just long to spend another night under attack  
> I retch  
> I shake  
> I cry until I break  
> And then I feel something release and I relax  
> \--Icarus, Jason Webley

The trouble with  _ now _ is that it was, by definition, ephemeral.  Wilson could have spent days in Maxwell’s arms.  Instead, he had been dumped with little ceremony on a marble floor, left to huddle in his coat and dread leaving it while Maxwell drew a bath.  He drummed his fingertips silently on the stone, using the little bursts of pain to drag away thoughts of half-dead deer and machinery that breathed.

He couldn’t drag them very far.

The bath would help, clear away the cobwebs and any meaning he associated with the dream would go with them.  It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before, there was nothing abnormal about it, nothing unnatural, dreams told you a narrative

**not your narrative**

and you got invested in them at the time because you were part of it, no matter how nonsensical the story was.  He’d had enough intricate dreams before that had fallen apart at the seams when exposed to daylight, this was no different.

Except he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen daylight.  Except that he had forgotten why his last eyepatch had gone missing.  Except there were fox traps, and there were no foxes, except the one at the deepest layer who couldn’t **shouldn’t** be woken--

_ What was he even thinking? _

He was thinking too much, he wasn’t thinking enough, he was trying to think but it was too loud, every time he tried to focus on what the nightmare girl had said he heard bone on bone and calliope tones, the soldier didn’t  _ want _ him to remember, and he had succeeded so far, hadn’t he?  Six times forgotten, the chalkboard erased--

“      “

There wasn’t really an absence of a word, he was sure, but it was a percussive force among percussive forces, distant toning bells and buzzes and clicks and snaps, a thousand mosquito-bite distractions.  Black was seeping through the bandages on his hands.

“      “

Maxwell was kneeling in front of him now, but Wilson couldn’t see his face through marbled white and blue, and there was a brief flash of relief in knowing he could make it stop if he stopped trying to remember, if he begged the right way and promised the monochrome shadows he’d stop--

\--but a promise was a contract, and  _ he didn’t want to forget not ever again _

Something that was supposed to be  _ help me _ but wasn’t moved between his lips, and Maxwell recoiled, red and blue both, and Wilson braced and closed his eyes and waited for them to hit him.

Instead one snapped him up like an insect, half-dragged and half-carried him and as his head was plunged under the water he didn’t struggle, the sounds warping and distorting, heat and hand on the back of his neck, searching for something--

Fingertips pressed into the base of his skull and something  _ moved _ inside of it and suddenly everything stopped for the pain, stopped dead by the  _ completeness _ of it, red sweet baptism by fire that drowned out the noise, drowned out the colors, drowned out the petty lowly bullying of the torment, drowned out the  _ dear God he was going to drown. _

He grabbed at Maxwell’s arm and was pulled back up, sputtering and gasping.  It was still hard to tell what his master was saying, but not from any supernatural-- _ unusual _ cause, just the very usual lack of focus that set in when there was too much going on.  He pushed himself up as best he could and swiped hair out of his face.

“Wh-what?”

_ “I said I’m not going to fucking kill you!” _

Wilson winced, pressing the heel of his palm against his aching forehead. “...y-you are making a t,  _ terrible _ c-c-c-case for that r-right now.”

Maxwell was silent, and so was his reflection in the water.  Wilson broke it with his hand, swirling old blood with his fingertips, trying to catch hazy memories.  Water.  They loved the water. “...d-did you guh, get it out?”

“...still too damned matted to see.  Just...get in.”

There should have been embarrassment, again, at Maxwell helping him shed his sling and what was left of his clothes and climb into the bath, but Wilson was too cold, too aching, too addled to feel it.  Even as he sighed into the heat, reveled in it, he grasped at the edges of science, of sense.

His skull had been fractured, just slightly.  After the fight with the clockworks, he hadn’t been able to  _ see _ the extent of the damage on his own, much less treat it.  The injury had pulled his speech impediment from the depths of the hell he had banished to, and the nightmares had crawled out of the abyss with it.  There were things in the dark that turned his sanity into quicksand beneath his feet, slipping and seizing and grasping, and the damage was making it that much harder to stay upright.

His skull had been fractured, just slightly.  There were bloodworms in his brain, let in through the keyhole of the fragments, shifting and squirming and sticking things together, eating his words even as he said them.  The grotesque trepanation had been sealed in flesh and bone, but the lock remained open,  **its** own window to crawl through whenever  **it** wanted, unless he held it shut, but if the window was closed, he was locked inside and  **it** was free to roam outside as  **it** pleased, and everything else was trapped, crushed between the shutters.

Neither thought was false.

It was like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces fit but the pictures were different, and every time he pulled one away they all fell, scrambled, hissed and reared on termite-gnawed legs--

_ It didn’t matter. _  As long as it stopped hurting, at least hurt  _ less, it didn’t matter. _  Not right now, at least.

Maxwell’s hand settled in his hair, not pressing but inquiring, and Wilson swallowed and nodded, moving to kneel awkwardly.

“Deep breath, pal.”

It didn’t hurt to fill his lungs, it should have but it didn’t, and that didn’t matter either, disappeared into bright buzzing pain as Maxwell ducked him under again, searching with both hands this time, fingertips easing the matted blood and tangled **snarled** hair from the entrance exit wound, and it was everything he had in him not to scratch, it itched it itched it buzzed it itched it **moved** **it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it**

Maxwell was shaking him, saying his name, looking into his eyes, and it confused Wilson until he realized time had slipped sideways again, fell under and away somewhere.  There was fire in his hands.  There was red fire in his master’s hands, the shade and strength of mahogany, and something had burned.

“M-Maxwell.” He said it without thinking, glancing over the water, into it, sure the thing had escaped intact, trying to spot the long thin tendrils before they burrowed under his skin.

“Stay with me, sweetheart.  It’s over.”

There was that word again, murmured criminally soft, a distraction he couldn’t afford, and Wilson pushed it away to reach up and feel for signs of flystrike. “I-is it--”

_ “Don’t.” _ Maxwell caught his arm, softness briefly replaced by terse edge, then back again as Wilson withdrew his hand obediently. “Do that.  Good boy.”

It was too hard to resist a second time, too easy to let himself be soothed after the barrage.  He attempted again to put the question together, had to settle for a single word. “Wh-what…?”

“Somethin’ healed wrong.” His tone was curiously flat, and the way he stroked Wilson’s cheek with the back of one bare hand curiously tender. “I fixed it.”

“...h-how?”

“I have ways.”

‘Ways’.  Ways like there being a house, not just a simple cabin but an opulent  _ house _ with marble tile and hot water in the exact center of nowhere, a house on or  _ under _ an endless but isolated stretch of land inhabited only by animals and monstrosities that somehow  _ worked,  _ a facade of civilization--

\--what else was false?  Which side of the coin was he looking at?  What had incubated inside him, left eggshells and flown, left his head in pieces for the rain to flood in, for his own reeking pond of blood and black leaves to run over and the flies to land on, left to scratch and catch at the hole in the sky in the skull in the egg in the seed in the sky in the skull in the

_ It _ __   
_ was _ __   
_ too _ _   
_ **_much_ **

Wilson didn’t look at Maxwell, couldn’t begin to, just extended one shaking arm, the corner of his mouth twitching, and clenched his upturned palm into a tight fist.

“...okay, yeah, hold on, I’ve got ya.”

It took all of his strength not to snatch his hand back as Maxwell tied Wilson’s belt around his arm and started feeling for a vein.  All his strength, and the sight of the long black wireworm, mireworm floating up from the drain, joining with the skin of his leg and almost casually burrowing beneath it.

He didn’t feel the needle go in this time, and he didn’t realize he was grasping at the nightmare fragment, trying to drag it out, until his mind cleared enough to realize he was grasping at it with hands that weren’t there.

The room was deathly quiet at first without the static, and when he sorted out the sound of Maxwell’s breathing, Wilson seized on it, shutting his eyes and trying to breathe in time, the tremors slowly fading.  There were a thousand things he wanted pushed away, banished from overbearing, overwhelming closeness, but Maxwell wasn’t one of them.  His presence was...perhaps overbearing, perhaps overwhelming, but in a way that kept the deep blue heat of madness at bay.  Heartbeat-close, he cleared a space in the shadows for them both.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t alone anymore.  Wilson hadn’t felt alone for quite some time.  Since the infection had carved something out inside of him for the nightmares to live in, he had been breathless, aching at the sour acid of his lungs being digested from the inside out.

It would have been easier if he had been alone.

Now, he burned with the desire for shared solitude, for the simplicity of touch and soft whispers between two bodies, and if he had even a shred of hope for that, he needed to evict a thousand uninvited guests.

_ He needed this to stop. _

“Maxw--” He winced as the needle slid out, biting his lip.  Maxwell’s tongue touched to the entry wound and he bit harder, caught up in the sudden notion of  _ being _ bitten, a snake-tongue split of images courting him--there was no way of discerning whether there’d be a coquettish bruise left behind or if sharp teeth would draw the sinew from his bones, bridge the gap between his grin and Wilson’s thin form with a red string of flesh.  His stomach flipped at the realization that there was perverse attraction in both images.  He didn't want to be hurt, but he wanted to be devoured, taken apart so he could be whole again, to be broken down and built back up.

He was entirely sure now that he was lucid, and that was uniquely alarming.  Not as uniquely alarming as the knowledge that a thin rime of blood was the only thing obscuring his arousal, but alarming.

Maxwell didn't sink in his teeth, but did flash them as he drew back, and Wilson tried to reconcile whether they had ever been as sharp as he remembered, or if that had been another hovering phantom.  “That what you needed, pal?”

“H-h-h--hhh, how d-does that w-w-work?”

He shifted forward self-consciously, was yanked back by the hair, and Maxwell’s lips touched his ear as he spoke.

“That isn’t a very  _ gracious _ response, is it?”

“N-n-n--no, I, I’m sss, s-sorry, I--” Wilson fumbled for words, gasped them out before thinking because thinking was suddenly no longer an option, and that was a wonderful thing. “--th-thank you, m-master--”

Maxwell let go of him a bit suddenly, and he caught himself and then  _ caught _ himself, the blush immediate and immense.

“...keen on that, huh?”

The question was almost strangely sincere, and Wilson struggled, a tic working at the corner of his mouth, before responding. “...wh-what...what  _ should _ I…?”

Maxwell dug into a pocket for a cigar. “Spit it out.”

“K-k-k-k- _ call _ you.” Wilson finished miserably.

He looked Wilson over, expression blank, not changing even as he curled in on himself self-consciously. “...Maxwell.”

“Oh.” It was a very soft sound, devoid of inflection.  He wasn’t sure what he had expected.  He barely knew what he was doing, this game he was trying to coax Maxwell to play, he didn’t know why he’d think that--

Maxwell struck a match off of Wilson’s back in one deft, harsh motion, and the sudden punishing flash pulled his spine ramrod-straight, a sound like blasphemy falling from his lips as he knelt at quivering attention, eyes wide.

“I like how you say it.” He lit the cigar and traced his hand down the deep red path he had drawn, fingertips cooling the heat. “And what  _ do _ we say, pet?”

Wilson gripped the edge of the bath dizzily, leaning back into the teasing hand, suddenly sure that whatever the rules were, his master didn’t just know them, he had  _ written _ them. “Th-thank y-y-you, M-Maxwell…”

Maxwell grinned and shook out the match. “Good boy.” 

He slid his hand to Wilson’s side, steadying him and easing him back down, and Wilson stopped trying to bite back a soft moan.

“Tell me what you need.”

Wilson breathed in smoke, the scent taking him back to restless moments spent running the ever-fraying dark flower garland through his hands.  It was mercifully and maddenly grounding, delineating  _ need _ from  _ necessity. _  The desire pulsing inside of him was embarrassingly persistent.  Lucidity, on the other hand, was fleeting.

“...I...n-need to sss, stop the...I need to m, make more mmm, medicine, i-it--” He swallowed, forcing himself to look into Maxwell’s eyes.  They were narrowed, and the words spilled out faster but worse, a half-formed defense. “--it’s b-been d-d--days since I ran out and it g-gets worse when I--it c-comes back w-worse than b-before  _ I c-can’t stand going back--” _

Maxwell clapped a hand over his mouth, and Wilson keened against the glove, muscles tightened to spring up, to kick, to run, to do all the little  _ pointless _ things rabbits did before they died.

“Needful thing,” It was a soft murmur, without affect, but it switched back to disdainful as he released Wilson and the tone was a curious mercy. “Scatterbrained son of a bitch…”

It shouldn’t have been funny, wasn’t, strictly, but Wilson barked laughter. “S-scattered everywhere.  Hhhh, h-help me pick it up and--and I--” Something clicked in his throat. “--and--w-we--”

There was unpleasant blankness cast across Maxwell’s eyes, a flat mirror reflection, but it dissolved into blessed, wicked amusement as Wilson’s voice cracked and faltered.  He took another drag on his cigar and grinned, leaning in close.

“Tell you what.  Let’s make a little deal of it.  You tell me what you need the  _ most, _ and you tell it to me nice and straight like the filthy pig you are, and I’ll make sure the  _ trivial _ things get taken care of.”

It was like a storm breaking, sharp cool rain, and Wilson leaned into it. “I nnn, need you, M-Maxwell, I need you to--t-to--”

“C’mon, don’t be shy.  You’ve  _ wanted _ this, haven’t you?  Prayed for it with one hand on your cock?”

“I d-don’t know what--” Wilson stopped short on the denial as Maxwell tapped his cigar off on the nape of his neck, sending hot ashes dancing down his spine.  _ “--y-yes all right I have--” _

“So tell me…” Maxwell took a handful of hair and tightened his grip, pulling just hard enough for Wilson’s eyes to water. “...what you  _ need.” _

He whimpered softly, pretenses and dignity disappearing. “U-use me, take m-me,  _ own _ me, I need y-your--I n-need y-your hands and your v-voice and your c-c-c--c--”

Maxwell yanked his head back and growled in his ear. “Say it.”

“--I need your c-cock please I need you to f-f-fuck me  _ Maxwell please I need y-you to f-fuck m-me--” _

Maxwell  _ did _ bite at that, sharp and sweet just above his collarbone, and Wilson moaned long and low, anguished, tormented,  _ fulfilled,  _ he was an  _ animal _ a filthy  _ animal _ and oh God it  _ filled _ him, it filled his face and shoulders with hot red blood, displaced the mire from the skull and the rot from his lungs with Maxwell, Maxwell,  _ Maxwell… _

His reverie was broken by a soft chuckle. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate the effort, pet, but you’re convincing enough.  You can knock it off.”

Wilson realized he had been repeating his master’s name over and over again, fervently, drunkenly, and against all scientific logic in him, he blushed harder.

“Get cleaned up, and--” Maxwell paused as Wilson grabbed his arm, stopping him from rising to his feet.

“D-don’t go,” he murmured.

“Do you want me to get what you need or not?”

“I-it’s in Ch-Chester.”

Maxwell paused a considerably longer time. “...you gave me that entire act to see your damned  _ dog?” _

Wilson barely flinched at the word in his sudden, desperate scramble for an excuse. “Sh-she’s not a d-d-d--I n-need to--I n-need to nn, know what I h-have, and--s-some other th-things--”

“But you  _ would, _ wouldn’t you,  _ sweetheart?” _

His voice was mockingbird-sweet, and Wilson groaned and pressed his face into his hands, giving up. “Y-yes,  _ Maxwell.” _

Maxwell chuckled again and stroked Wilson’s hair, soothing his bruised ego. “All right, all right.  What are the other things?”

Wilson slid his hands up to press at his temples, focusing.  He had kept inventory almost since his arrival on the Island, fending off his own absent-mindedness, and he could see the list in front of him if he thought hard enough. “...s-silk.  A l-lot of silk, or c-cloth, silk has been--easier to get, s-spiders...s-spider milk--”

“Spider  _ what?” _

The word caught a few times before he got it out again. “Mih-mih-mih-- _ milk. _  It’s...a l-liquid that c-comes out of fff, flying spiders, I’m n-not entirely s-sure of its origin b-but I p-prefer to think of it as--”

“Oh Jesus.” Maxwell sighed and took a deep drag off his cigar. “You want that disgusting pink shit from one of those moonflower bastards, don’t you.”

_ “Need.   _ It’s…” Wilson shifted awkwardly, one hand dropping to massage his leg. “...i-it’s the only th-thing that...s-stops the…”

He trailed off, and Maxwell sighed again, but resignedly. “Yeah, I get it, pal.  I can arrange that.”

“I h-have the mushrooms to f, filter it through, b-but I’ll nnn, need somewhere to g-grow them.  I...d-don’t know what it’s l-like outside…”

“I’ll take care of it.  What else?”

“I nuh, need s-somewhere to w-work, and…” Wilson ran one hand through his hair, trying to find the right words. “...s...something to work  _ around. _  T-to...h-help me...f-focus.  It’s…”

Maxwell flicked the ash off his cigar dismissively. “I’ve seen your engines before.  You couldn’t have built the first one without me, for Christ’s sake.  Don’t get high and mighty about it.”

“Right,” he mumbled, turning the thought over.  It had been a long time since he had considered the first night with the radio, the electric-snapping rapture that had poured out over him, how  _ that _ had been the exciting part for such a pathetically short time before the working arrangement had grown far past ‘work’.

“Done.  Anything else?”

“Ssss--salicylic acid.”

Maxwell stared at him evenly, and Wilson blushed. “--b-bark from--a-any nnn, number of plants, i-if it has a b-bitter taste it has s-salicylic acid or is p, poisonous or b-both or s-sometimes n-neither but most c-commonly--” Wilson stopped himself before Maxwell’s expression could grow more dire, finished lamely. “--j-just...s-some tree or b-berry branches I c-can strip down.  I c-can make aspirin, it sh-should help the…”

“Fever.” Maxwell finished for him.

Wilson nodded mutely.    


“Hell of a shopping list.  Unless you’re gonna--” Maxwell stopped, pursed his lips, held something back and replaced it. “...you’ll be fine for now with that.  You gonna let me leave now, pal?”

Wilson’s mouth didn’t move, but nothing in him was silent.

_ Maxwell, when did my bones set? _

_ Maxwell, when did my throat clear? _

_ Maxwell, what did you put in me? _

_ Maxwell,  _ **_why am I still sick?_ **

They weren’t questions that were going to be answered.  Not yet.  He’d work it out, he had always found answers for good or ill when he looked hard enough, but he didn’t want to look yet.  He needed this clarity to make himself human again, or as close as he got to human, because Maxwell was hard to read but still easier than he liked to think, and the question written there...

_ Maxwell, why are you afraid of me? _

He closed his bad eye, watched a sliver of white light traverse it before it went dark again.  It didn’t stand asking, just erasing, making better.   _ He was going to get better. _  He needed a few things, time first and foremost, and that…that was its own question, and Wilson caught on the start of it a few times before getting his tongue around it, the words tough like dried meat.

“K-k--cah--c...c-can I...are you g, going to l-let me stay this time?”

_ “Jesus,  _ kid, why would I--” Maxwell cut himself off, and when he started again, it was in the same tone he had spoken of white horses in, sincerity so thin as to be fragile but there nonetheless. “...I swear to Christ it was the last thing I wanted to do.  I didn’t want to let go, I  _ had _ to, it wasn’t...I didn’t have a goddamned say in the matter.  Even the--even I’m bound by a few rules.” His lips quirked, and his voice raised with them, easy, confident. “Keeps things interesting.”

“Ih, interesting like a f-fifty-foot tall g-g-goose with antlers?” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it, and he hovered for a moment before doubling down. “Don’t t-try to tell me th-that one wasn’t r, real, I was--I made v- _ very _ sure of it at the t-time--”

Maxwell hid something behind his glove that was a tired laugh or a sigh or both. “Goddammit, don’t rub it in.  I had a say in that one, just didn’t say it clear enough.”

The ridiculous squawking monstrosity being confirmed as real when so little wasn’t seemed both unfair and oddly comforting.  Wilson filed away the information and moved on. “Ih--‘interesting’ n-nearly got me k-k--kill--”

“I’m sorry.”

The world jolted sideways as Maxwell cut him off, Wilson’s heart suddenly hammering behind his eyes, in his ears. “I--I w-wasn’t--”

“I know you weren’t,  _ sweetheart, _ don’t make this harder than it has to be.” It was sharp, the bite of a cornered animal, a trapped fox, and there was another awful lurch at the image of his master exhausted and frayed and bloodied. “Everything that happened--”

_ “Don’t.” _ It was an agonized hiss, against the admission, against the cusp of understanding that was threatening to unfold, against clean white marble being stained with shadows. “Don’t-don’t-don’t- _ please.  Not.  Now.   _ J-just--j-just say it’s-- _ just s-say it’s all right, that’s a-all I--please--” _

Something in his leg twisted and bit, not a worm but a withered muscle pulled taut, and there was some kind of sick comfort in the white-blue agony turning to red, his pleading resolving into a strangled moan as he desperately massaged his thigh.  The third reflection in the water moved to touch his shoulder, drew back.

“All right, all right, Jesus goddamned  _ Christ, _ calm down.  Whatever you want, just don’t…” The reflection moved again, a hand settling in his hair this time. “Just calm down.  I’ll get you what you need.”

Wilson nodded, heat at the corners of his eyes turning into fast, quiet laughter. “I’m s-sorry, I’m sss, sorry, it’s n--not--not usually this b-bad, I, I’m used to exerc--exercising it, I h-haven’t b-been rrrrrr, resting, I’m--”

“Calm.” Maxwell’s hand tightened.  _ “Down.” _

The pinprick pain across Wilson’s scalp was beautifully sedating, and he nodded again, much more carefully. “I’m--...y, yes, Maxwell.”

“Heh.  You’re quicker on the uptake than you seem, you know that?”

Wilson wasn’t sure if that was praise, exactly, but set it aside as Maxwell stood and stretched.  “S-silk.  Please.  Eyepatches.  Y-you said--”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time, don't push it.” He cracked his neck and eyed him appraisingly. “I won’t be long.  Get cleaned up and wait for me, last thing either of us need is you cracking your head open again because you slip on the fucking soap.”

He held the word, the image for a moment before pursuing it. “Th, there’s.  Soap?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t there be--” Maxwell stopped, considering, and corrected his tone to something much softer. “Soap.  Towels.  As much hot water as you want.  Hold on.”

The pity made Wilson’s cheeks burn pink, and he almost reassured Maxwell that he had had soap, sometimes, made with animal fat and dark flower petals, and that he had only been allies with previous owners of the fat before they died on occasion, and oh God, how far from civilized  _ was _ he?    


Very, he decided, as Maxwell opened a cabinet and the sight of neatly folded towels and soap that had never talked to him sent an absolutely perverse shiver of pleasure down his spine.  Very.    


“Here.  God knows you need it.”

He also decided he didn’t care.  He didn’t bother with decorum or the rules to the game they were playing, simply grabbed the soap like a starving dog would--

_ Stop it. _

Wilson stopped it.  Maxwell was chuckling, not unkindly, and things were all right, couldn’t things be all  _ right _ for God’s sake?

Maxwell picked up his coat and shrugged it on. “Take your time, sweetheart.”

“I, I will.”  
  
“Don’t drown.”

“I w-won’t.  Th, thank you, Maxwell.” Wilson hesitated. “...M-Maxwell?”

His master was already at door, and he cast a glance back. “Yeah?”

“...b-be careful, please.”

He flat-out laughed at that and waved a hand deferentially.

“I’ll see what I can do, pet.”

Wilson resisted slinking under the mired water to hide his blush as Maxwell left, busying himself with letting the bloody mess drain and starting to refresh it with a hot, clean batch.  As it ran, he turned the soap over in his hands, first in appreciation, then in sudden curiosity.

It smelled like dark flower petals.

He closed his eyes, inhaled slowly, and smiled.

Everything really was all right.

In the steaming water, the second reflection watched him a little while longer, then departed without words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a transitional scene and 600 words max. It ended up clocking in at 4,422 words and 11 pages. I'm sorry folks, we're in for the long haul here.
> 
> Thanks for this chapter:  
> Masky and Crow against for being patient beta readers, and especially for the shot in the arm Masky gave me in the last stretch  
> You, my patient reader
> 
> Choice trivia for this chapter:  
> \--Not only did this run longer than expected, it ran so long I had to copy everything into a new Google Doc because it had gotten so long the full fic was making Drive chug on my phone  
> \--Weird Al Yankovic's "(This Song Is Just) Six Words Long" came on my Winamp shuffle literally as I was writing this summary, because technology itself sees my folly at this point


	4. Fourth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I concede that you were right about this place  
> I can make a perfect likeness of your body if I trace  
> I can hold you 'til you turn out the light  
> And I can see
> 
> Do you believe that we are all innately good  
> Do you think that you would love me 'til tomorrow if you could  
> Would you please turn down the radio  
> So we can speak
> 
> I put my hands around your neck  
> (you wrap your arms around me)  
> I put my hands around your neck   
> (you wrap your arms around me)  
> I put my hands around your neck  
> (you wrap your arms around me)
> 
> \--Wrap Your Arms Around Me, Barenaked Ladies

There was something grounding about a good walk. Pity this wasn’t a good one.

In truth, it would have been faster, easier, and much more advisable for Maxwell to take a shortcut to his destination, move from one shadow to another and be back before Wilson got tired--or, God forbid, _bored--_ and got himself into trouble. He had seemed stable enough to leave alone, but that stability could be its own problem. Maxwell had seen the man build up sprawling farms, fortresses of stone and marble, a battalion’s worth of provisions and weaponry interspersed with entirely new machines forged from graveyard junk, and then lose it all to a thoughtless death because he simply _had_ to see the mating habits of lashing tentacles, _had_ to see what a new mushroom did by eating it, _had_ to steal an egg from horrendously ill-tempered giant birds and then _raise the damned thing within his own walls._

Dear God, the birds. It was no wonder his waking nightmares teemed with them even now. He couldn’t count how many times Wilson’s survival had been reset by an enormous beak scissoring his skull apart into bright red and white ribbons…

...and he had found it _funny_ at the time, had laughed himself to pieces and moved the nests _closer,_ and so he was holding a stinking red flower at arm’s length and steeling himself to eat his own share of crow.

It was only out this deep in the forest that Maxwell realized that the outdoors, even the comfort of the fathomless night, didn’t suit him as it once did.

_Suit._ What a particular word. Fitted and tailored. A thing of worth and wealth. The manor suited him, he had cut the cloth himself, patterned it stately and strong but nicely snug, each room stitched into a practical little pocket. And like a proper showman’s coat, there were compartments only he knew about, for his own use, but all neat, all orderly, all to his perfect design.

The woods weren’t tailored. They were their own living pelt, teeth bared at his scissors in derisive laughter.

God knew he had tried. Hell, he was doing it now, wasn’t he? He had crafted the carrion flower with his own hands, his own tools, his own materials before setting out, it was--should have been--as much a maker’s mark as the statues, an affirmation of how he towered above this meager, chaotic little world, something to be given proper respect.

Like a proper showman, though, Maxwell knew the difference between quality goods and a cheap imitation.

Maxwell had known where everything was once, what it was, or so he thought. He knew the Board. But it had changed, was changing. The woods sprawled, sprouted new trees. Plains withered into deserts. What were ponds one day dried up the next, left tunnels so deep and absurd as to only be useful as a rug to shove mistakes under--not that he hadn’t been grateful for that a time or two, in all honesty, but it was untidy, unplanned. Things crept in.

He couldn’t explain why he hated the flying spiders the most. Not for a lack of explanation, not how he couldn’t explain why he hated the sound of far-off birds and crunching leaves in what should have been a mere charcoal sketch of trees and grass, but how he couldn’t explain knowing what Wilson’s response would be. They were lovable little things, weren’t they? Not like spiders at all, really, soft, warm, buzzing sweetly, a loyal companion for a lost mind, and what else was the pitiful creature he had taken in but just that?

_Marble,_ he thought, and there was marble ahead in the tall weeds, an effigy of the thing. Maxwell could almost pretend he was crafting it from thin air, sink his teeth into that notion of control and worry it like a dog with a rabbit

**ive her here you get cleaned up and I’ll bury I’ll lay her to rest and we’ll tell Mother the dog got into the hutch it’ll be all right just promise me Will**

the words were inaudible over the blare of scratched warped records laboring but he couldn’t not hear them and his mouth was full of steel wool and his heart was pounding and there was a small stiff body in his bare hands

**promise me you’ll be kinder than they are or it won’t get better**

The disappearance of the static was more sudden and unkinder-- _worse_ than its onset, the world tilting and ringing in its absence, and Maxwell almost fell in the snow--had there been snow before, was there snow now _yes of course there was snow stop being so **bloody** ridiculous it was _ fucking _winter._

He almost swiped at the mangy beast that had bumped up against him from behind, thought better of it at the last second, pulled his hand back before it could set off another mortar in his mind. Instead Maxwell licked dry lips, glared at the hateful thing as it purred and cooed and his pulse slowed. Soft. Warm. Sweet. Up until they made you _remember._

At length, he threw the flower at the spider in disgust, and it settled to drink. There was fragrant pink silk spun like cotton candy over the statue, and the sugary smell clutched at Maxwell’s bones, sent record scratches humming up his spine, but he was ready this time. It was so easy to shut down the senses once you knew how, so natural, so _mature._ He wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t going to act like one. 

He also wasn’t going to do this more than once, he thought, grimacing as he pulled apart the web and stuffed it hastily into a box. Maxwell couldn’t imagine the kind of charmed life Wilson must have had to have no trouble engaging with the flighty bastards, but it was a luxury he was going to live off of once he was up and walking again.

There would be a lot of luxuries once he was up and walking again.

He was still shut down, securely disengaged, so the abrupt dread-sweet-panic-allure of _he’s finally here_ wrenched his stomach so severely that he half expected to look down and see his guts spilled over the snow, red and steaming with heat. He cursed vehemently and threw his spoiled gloves into the snow instead, one after the other, taking less solace than he should have at the spider’s panicked takeoff.

There weren’t any tracks.

Maxwell’s breath was heavy in the air, his fingertips already tingling from the cold, the entire world was monochrome blue with snow, and he hadn’t left a single footprint.

The spider buzzed behind him, the only sound in the world, and all at once he decided to hell with it, to hell with the entire Board. There were bad times to be in any forest with any age to it and this one twisted and pulsed to its own heathen calendar. If there had ever been any good in it, it was waiting for him at home.

_Home._

It was a notion as disorienting as the phantom snow, and the world wavered unpleasantly around Maxwell as he Moved, his lack of focus making the silhouettes snap and fizz. For a dizzying moment he felt himself trapped between light and shadow, and then the darkness opened up for him and he rushed into it, shedding disconcerting thoughts as he went.

Once you knew what you were looking for, the shadows weren’t difficult to navigate. There weren’t linear paths, but there were colors, and moving between them was like looking at stars and seeing constellations. It required the right sort of mind for it and more than a little practice, but if there was ever a mind the heavens saw fit to bow to, it was Maxwell’s.

He did have to admit some of the colors made more sense than others. There was fiery orange, and the deep grey-brown of tree trunks, and a faint white the shade of lilies--the last was one he understood all too well, and one he paid particularly close attention to. At the same time, though, there were...aberrations. There was a milky blue-white that he only ever saw out of the corner of his eye, no matter how he tried to chase it, something he had believed was his own color reflecting somehow until it had started going missing. There was a barely perceptible black-on-black that traveled far faster than any of the pieces on the Board should have, seeming to whisk out of sight the moment he truly looked at it. And there was one color that he only knew existed because he knew exactly where it was, because that piece was thrice-fucked _transparent,_ which made _perfect_ sense considering how _fucking_ contrary the man it belonged to was, he would _love_ it if he knew how much trouble it gave Maxwell, would _adore_ the problems it caused him--

_Home._ Home, or what passed for it. He’d had enough unpleasant memories for one night, and Wilson had to be wondering about him by now. Wilson was an easy color to find, the warm, deep red of rosewood. Maxwell couldn’t figure out why the dark had decided to fit him with it, but it was convenient and...well, not unpleasant.

He brought himself close enough to that soft red glow that he could pick out the shapes around it, and stepped out of the shadows in the hall. The snow evaporated off of his boots and coat even before he opened the door.

Even knowing that Wilson was going to be there, seeing him made Maxwell’s heart seize up for just a moment, as if he had started to lose his footing and barely caught himself before he fell. He was facing away from him in the bath, knees hugged to his chest, and Maxwell could make out each miniscule deviation in the curve of his spine. Wilson was contradictory by nature, and that carried to his anatomy--he somehow managed to seem less vulnerable, less fragile, naked than dressed. He was underfed and overgrown, like a particularly awkward stalk of ragweed made flesh, and he should have cut a pitiful figure, but instead Maxwell was reminded of how damned persistent ragweed could be. The mark left from the struck match was mild, a soft stripe of pink, but it radiated against the blank white canvas of his back, and Maxwell longed to keep painting.

He wouldn’t push him. He wouldn’t dare. Wilson was too eager by half, and pursuing that in the state he was in wasn’t just wrong, it was dangerous. Maxwell didn’t think he’d be able to forget the sickening feeling of skull fragments under skin clicking together beneath his fingertips for as long as he lived, and Wilson dying was nowhere on his agenda. And until he was _damned_ sure there were no more ugly little surprises hiding away, neither was satisfying either of their urges.

On the other hand, there was no harm in enjoying himself a little.

Wilson’s head tilted just slightly toward him at the sound of his boots on the tile, and as Maxwell’s lips brushed the burn mark, the soft sound he breathed out immediately paid for the walk in the woods going sour. He grinned against his pet’s skin, reaching to trace his ribs precisely with his fingertips.

“Miss me, sweetheart?”

“How far can a dog run into the woods?”

Well. He had tried.

Maxwell knelt by him, sighing, and took Wilson’s face in one hand, easily guiding him to turn and look at him. He was docile, unafraid, his eyes half-lidded, something that should have been reassuring given the outbursts Maxwell had struggled to calm before, but his pliability was unsettling. There was a blankness in his eyes suggestive of sheep, an absence of caution that was as perverse as his terrified grappling with thin air. He was suddenly sure that if he gave him a razor and told him to slit his own throat, he would blissfully obey and not even have the decency to try to scream as he lay dying.

_Ugly little surprises._

“How far _can_ a dog run into the woods, pal?”

His voice was just a little bit too loud, just a little bit too sharp, and it worked. Wilson furrowed his eyebrows, glassy complacency fading into quizzical caution.

“I...I d-don’t know, how ff--far c-can a d-d-d--dog run into the w-woods?”

Maxwell counted silently to ten and wondered about the criteria for sainthood.

“I’m--I’m s-sorry, I…” Wilson exhaled shakily and began straightening up. “M-must have f, fallen asleep--”

He cut himself off with a sharp whine, going stock-still, gaze suddenly fixed on nothing, and Maxwell almost started shaking him, then realization dawned on him and he glanced down into the water. Wilson’s right leg was stretched out easily, but his left was frozen, unmoving, blurred under the minute ripples caused by his trembling.

“Jesus, how bad is…” Maxwell stopped. He didn’t want to hear the answer. “Hold still.”

“Nnn, no, please--” Wilson clenched his teeth as he tried to curl up again. “D-don’t t-touch it--”

“Shhh, I won’t. Hold still.” Maxwell put one hand on his pet’s back gently, pressed more firmly as he shook harder. “Hold. Still.”

Wilson obeyed, holding his breath, then exhaled a dry sob as Maxwell started massaging his back. _“Maxwell…”_

“Shhh.” Maxwell worked his fingertips lower, murmuring softly into Wilson’s ear. “I’ve got you.”

“M-Maxwell,” he repeated, voice still torn but less urgent, and closed his eyes.

“Good boy. Relax. Just relax. I’ve got you.”

It was almost serene, the room quiet except for soft words about anything, everything, nothing, comforting nonsensical patter to cover the brutality of raw nerves and spent muscles. Wilson gradually extended his bad leg an inch, then another, then spent another tearless sob to reach down and start massaging his thigh.

Maxwell wanted to touch him.

The impulse was so sudden and thorough that it brought an afterimage of pulsing heat, a clear, sick-sweet pain tugging like marionette strings behind his eyes, reach down fast as a viper and dig his nails **claws** straight into the scars crossing Wilson’s leg, dig and **twist** and listen to him scream his name instead of whispering it and without that **embarrassment** of a stutter—

Wilson murmured wordless gratitude as Maxwell jerked away, too preoccupied to notice that the sweat on his brow had nothing to do with the steam, and his lack of guile made the migraine that much worse.

_Impulses._ Bad habits. Christ, they had both been in the dark too long. They had both forgotten how to be human.

Well, bad habits could be cured. He had gotten the pangs of dark curiosity under control before, he could do it again. _They_ had been able to crawl free because of a momentary perverse desire, a lapse of judgment, but Maxwell had made damned sure the shadows knew who was the king on the Board, bound to it or not. As long as he kept his temper, the impulses would fade.

Privately, he wished this one would fade faster.

Wilson was saying something, or trying to, and Maxwell clenched his teeth against the self-flagellation. “Speak up, pal.”

“I. Nnnn, need a p-place I can b-be alone. ...please. ...Mm—Maxwell.”

The request was calm, and while it wasn’t the sheeplike trance of before, calm wasn’t a mood that Maxwell liked on Wilson. He wasn’t the type of man to sit still of his own volition. He was a dynamo of nervous energy and bad decisions, he moved even when he wasn’t moving, adjusting his gloves or fidgeting with his equipment. He had spent an hour during the construction of the Machine chewing a pen _while using a typewriter,_ a testimony of devotion to habit so strong Maxwell had almost been too impressed to question it. When he had, Wilson had stared in flat incomprehension at the pen as if someone else had put it there. He was always doing _something,_ even if those things were so small he didn’t notice them himself.

Except he wasn’t moving right now, he was calm, and it was like speaking to the dead.

He shoved the notion away and lit a cigar. “I’ve seen you undressed before, pet, don’t worry about it. Ain’t that much to look at.”

Wilson went an attractive shade of pink, looking up at him. “Th-that’s n-not--I d-d-d-didn’t mean--I--I am n-not--there is _nothing_ w-wrong with my--I-I-I- _I am a very a-a-average man!”_

Maxwell grinned and ruffled his hair, unease ebbing away. Funny what a little misdirection could do. “Kidding, sweetheart, kidding. Do you really think I’d invest this much into defective goods?”

Wilson’s gaze dropped again, and he resumed rubbing his thigh. “...I...a-am d-d-d-d--” He shook his head and forced the word out laboriously. _“--defective,_ th-that’s why I n-need to--I--” He stopped again, took a deep breath. “...did y-you get the suh, spider milk? Maxwell?”

A chance for a little showmanship. Perfect. He patted his pockets with a liberal amount of exaggeration. “Spider milk, spider milk, spider milk...you really think I’d ruin a suit this expensive with that shit, pal?”

“Y-you don’t hhh, have to make _fun_ of m-m—“

“Ya know, pal, somethin’ I like about a hot bath—“ Maxwell reached just past his pet’s blind spot and conjured the box, opening it with a flourish as he pulled back. “—it really helps clear out the cobwebs.”

It was a party trick at best, but it coaxed a cautious smile out of him. “...w-was that a p-pun?”

“Don’t push it, kid. Is that enough?”

Wilson nodded eagerly. “Yyy--yes, th-thank you Maxwell, ih, it’s--once I guh, get a lab working I can process it into m--I can pr-process it into m-medicine, I nnn, need r-red mushrooms but I have some in Ch-Chester that I can h-h-harvest spores from and--y-you see it’s like how they c, color carnations, some plants are better than others at naturally f-filtering or r-rather f-f-failing to filter specific toxi--”

“Save it.” 

“Y-yes, Maxwell.”

Interrupting one of Wilson’s scientific diatribes wasn’t so much mean-spirited as a critical survival skill. There were many fascinating things about the ridiculous little man, and one of them was that he was intelligent enough to recite a complete oral history on the invention and use of plywood, yet _...intelligent_ enough to drop his backpack directly into his campfire while changing clothes. Repeatedly. Maxwell had never met anyone whose mind managed to work at cross purposes to itself. He’d known more than his fair share of people too smart for their own good, but there was that, and then there was...whatever Wilson was.

“A-anyway, I c-c-c-- _can’t_ wait on muh, mushroom growth right now, I n-need--I h-have to--” His hand twitched back to his leg. “I’m g-going to have to...take s-some of this...r-raw.”

Maxwell’s stomach twisted. “--hold on, you _eat_ this…” He trailed off, looking down at the pink, cottony sludge filling the box, and it was all he could do to keep from dropping it in revulsion. He snapped it shut and put it aside instead.

“J-just a little. Just enough. I-it--it’s-- _it’s b-better than the p-pain.”_ The anxious uptick smoothed back into distasteful calm. “I...I n-need to be alone, th-though, it...it makes me...s-sick.”

“You’ve been sick.”

“Worse than th-this.”

It was an open wound Maxwell couldn’t help probing. “...what does worse than this look like, exactly? More of your big birdy bugbear?”

Wilson stifled a brittle laugh that Maxwell was growing to know and hate. “N-no birds, j-just--just a, a rat. The f-f-first--the only t-time, there was a r-rat. A...l-little grey and wh-white rat, with...w-with br-broken eggs s-spilling from its eyes, and it…” He covered his dead eye unconsciously, not blocking the laughter this time, fast and manic. “I-it kept ssss, screaming at me to stop k-k-k-k _\--crucifying_ m-m-myself, as if--a-as if I--i-it--as if I-I-I--”

Maxwell wrapped his hands around Wilson’s neck and squeezed.

“Breathe,” he ordered flatly, and tightened his grip at the choked protest. “Work for it.”

It wasn’t an unkindness. 

“I said breathe.”

Keeping the hysteria from taking over, keeping the small vicious visions of his pet’s troubled mind from spilling out of his skull, was not an unkindness. 

“Is that the best you can do?”

Maxwell, whose mind did not work at cross purposes to itself, who did not see birds or hear rats, held Wilson on the fine edge of strangling, and as the struggle for air became his world, as _Maxwell_ became his world, there was no room for unkindesses in it, no room for memory in his soft brown mismatched eyes.

“Better. Slow, sweetheart. _Slow.”_

There was focus, and trust, and gratitude, and devotion more intense than the fluttering pulse under his thumbs, and if Maxwell had been the kind of man to get scared, he would have been terrified.

“Good…keep going...”

He wasn’t, though, of course not, and it wasn’t like Wilson was the first man to need this kind of attention. The first man to need it so _thoroughly,_ perhaps, but there were worse needs.

“Good boy.”

There were worse things than needing, for that matter.

It was an ugly thought, and he let it go along with Wilson. “Well?”

Wilson coughed a few times, cleared his throat carefully, and leaned into Maxwell’s hand as he stroked his hair. “...h-how do you...nnn, never mh, mind, I...I n-needed th...I...it...h-helped.” 

“Heh, no kiddi--”

Wilson caught his hand with the kind of speed no man who had just been _fucking_ strangled had the right to have and kissed the back of it with a sincerity that, again, had absolutely no right being there. “Th-thank you, Maxwell.”

Maxwell suddenly wanted to do a dozen things, a hundred, most of them some permutation of what was _proper_ to follow rough treatment, a disconcerting number of them closer to his pet’s more _eccentric_ approach, none of which were feasible with Wilson already wincing and rubbing his thigh again. He withdrew and threw a towel at him instead, letting him fumble with it as he retrieved the box.

“How long are you gonna be...indisposed?” It was a casual question. Almost.

“I--” Wilson managed to free himself from the towel, although he didn’t let go of it. “--I d-don’t know. An h-hour, mmm, maybe two. J-just...a w-well-lit room, and s-someplace to luh, lie down, and I’ll c-come ffff, find you when--”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

Wilson cringed. “M-Maxwell. Please, yyy--you d-don’t know what it’s l-like--”

“No, I don’t, and that’s why I’m not for _damn’_ sure leaving you alone. You go to pieces when I’m not around.”

Wilson laughed deep in his throat, not hysteria but genuine exhausted amusement at some personal joke. “C-couldn’t you just...t-t-t-t-tie me d-down again?”

“Didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“Maxwell, p-please…” Wilson ran a hand through his hair, staring at his reflection. “You d-don’t _want_ th-this.”

Deals were something of a vice for Maxwell, but they were also infinitely useful, and there was one to be struck here. “How many times do I have to tell you…” He picked up the box and snapped it open with one hand, and used the other to pull a white silk eyepatch from his coat pocket, conjuring it easily from the fabric inside. “...you don’t get to tell me what I want?”

The look on his pet’s face was an enticing mixture of frantic and adoring. “Maxwell…”

“Do you trust me?”

Wilson was smart enough not to grab, but it was a clear struggle, and he yanked the plug out of the drain with more vigor than was strictly necessary. “I j-just l-let you sssss--let you _strangle_ m-me, what do you th-thi--”

Maxwell held out the box of silk. “Prove it.”

The struggle continued for a long moment, in tiny movements and rapidly changing expressions and finally a long frustrated sigh. Maxwell didn’t move, just nodded and grinned as he reluctantly reached out and pulled a thready chunk of the web loose. Wilson wrapped it around itself, pinching it into a ball, and looked at it balefully.

“You...wh-whatever I ssss, say, or…d-do...please d-don’t...I’m...n-n-n-not…”

He couldn’t finish, and Maxwell inspected an imaginary stain on his sleeve, tone carefully diffident. “Only crazy one around here is me for takin’ your sorry ass in.”

Wilson exhaled shakily, not able or needing to voice his gratitude this time, and swallowed the web, grimacing.

Maxwell smirked and bit his ear, purring into it softly. “Good boy.”

“It k-k-k _\--comes_ on quick,” he mumbled, face going bright pink as Maxwell looped the eyepatch into position. “I d-don’t know how luh, long I h-have.”

“Relax.” Maxwell tied the ends off and paused for a moment as Wilson did just that, covering and uncovering his bad eye with tangible, full-body relief. “...the hell does that shit taste like, anyway?”

“It…” Wilson furrowed his brow. “...it t-tastes like nnn, nothing. It d-doesn’t not taste like a-anything, it...t-tastes like _nothing._ ” He bit his lip and exhaled wearily. “I kn-know that d-doesn’t make sss, sense, but it’s j-just--like the other things that d-don’t make sense here, it’s not...it’s not from i-inside my head, it…” He perked up, just barely, a little bit of good humor returning. “It’s like the g, goose monster...thing, it--it’s that k-kind of sense.”

“Heh. Got me there, pal. You gonna dry off or fre--or sit there all day?”

“Y-yes, all right…”

He didn’t like to admit it, but he had a point. Maxwell was used to magic, but Wilson was almost _vengefully_ scientific, disturbing spirits from long-forgotten graves and then sending them six feet under again with nothing but a half-broken shovel and the ardent zeal that they did not, in any intellectual sense, actually exist. He skated on an unwavering sense of logic, sometimes onto very thin ice, but it served him well most of the time. Maxwell almost couldn’t blame him for the times it didn’t, the Board was full of riddles without answers--

Something clicked, a satisfying tumbler turn in Maxwell’s mind. “Say, pal.”

“Wh, what is it?” Wilson was only half paying attention, looking down at himself critically. “I...m-might...n-need some help sss, standing.”

If he thought he was walking anywhere, he was kidding himself, but getting him upright was a decent first step. Maxwell helped him up carefully, in slow, smooth motions, and pulled him against his chest. “It’s an old riddle, isn’t it?”

“I...wh...yyyy, yes?” 

Oh, he definitely wasn’t paying attention now. Maxwell squeezed him tighter, smile wide and appraising as he blushed and squirmed. “How far a dog can run into the woods.”

Wilson wasn’t exactly pressing against him, but he wasn’t exactly _not,_ either, a beautiful world of contradictions, although the predicament wasn’t quite dire enough to keep him from flinching at the word ‘dog’. “Hhhhh--how f, far is that?”

“Halfway. Then it’s running out of the--”

The blood drained so quickly and completely from Wilson’s face that for an instant there was an illusion that he didn’t have any color at all, grey down to his eyes, and the thought _this isn’t supposed to happen_ surged through Maxwell so completely that it was like precognition, an exact future painted into his veins that would stop his heart if it reached it. “Wi--”

Wilson lurched backwards, one hand clutching at his stomach, the other at his mouth, and for a moment of certainty just as fierce as the last, Maxwell understood that he needed to be sick, nasty medicine on an overworked stomach, he shouldn’t have been standing shouldn’t have been _able_ to be standing but as soon as he got it out of his system everything would--

And he dropped to his hands and knees, folded to them, and he was sick, and it was wrong.

The fuel had caught up with him, he had been a damned **bloody** _fucking_ idiot to give him so much, except even as he scrambled down to support him, he knew that wasn’t right either. He wasn’t vomiting, he was coughing, he was bringing up rope from his throat like a horrible magic trick--not rope, _ribbon,_ thin black ribbon in endless curls and tangles

**oh how sweet to pull it and see how deep it goes**

So sweet so _sweet,_ he was sure it would kill him and that would be a mercy to them both, there was no sense in this and there was no cure--

\--and without him there was no _point,_ this wasn’t a future he could be in, so goddammit he would _make_ it stop, he would _make_ sense of it. He was the _goddamned king._

“What the hell are you doing?” He took Wilson’s chin in one hand, staring impassively into his eyes, not looking at the ribbon, not _seeing_ it now that he had his mind set to it. Misdirection. Everything was misdirection. “Calm the _fuck_ down. Jesus, only man I’ve ever known who could choke on thin air.”

Wilson’s eyes flicked down at the shadow--and of course it was a shadow, what the Christ else would it be, the damned things were everywhere, they gorged on fevers and fervors--and Maxwell glanced down with him, back up quizzically. “Is it the rat?”

There were dark snarls spilled across the marble like spilled ink, some immense parasite of the lungs, and Wilson was breathing high and hard like something had broken inside of his ribcage, but he wasn’t looking at the spilled plasticky guts, he was looking at Maxwell’s carefully irritated expression, and thank whatever god might bother with this nonsensical awful world, _he was buying it._

“Calm. _Down.”_ He passed his thumb over Wilson’s lips, clearing away the froth. “Let’s get you into bed, you’ll…” He stopped as the end of the shadow stuck briefly to his glove, then snaked down onto the tile. He quickly turned the movement into rubbing his back, easing the coughing fit down into labored wheezing, steadfastly not watching the creeping thing to see if it moved. “You’ve been up too long, I don’t know why I let you out in the first place.”

Wilson didn’t even offer token resistance as Maxwell bundled him into his coat, breathing almost too shallow now, clutching his stomach tightly, and guilt shivered over Maxwell’s skin like electricity. He had promised himself he wouldn’t start lying like this again. He had promised himself…

Very softly, cracked but distinct, Wilson started humming to himself, not the tuneless drone he set into sometimes while thinking, but music, something nameless and unfamiliar that nonetheless set off some very distant bell of recognition.

What the hell even was the truth here?

Never mind. Distinct steps. Get him stable. Check the Book. There would be answers. There couldn’t not be.

As Maxwell carried his pet to refuge, he made a point of not looking back. Illusions went extinct as soon as there was nothing to see them.

Nothing happened for a long while after he left.

Then, with a sound like flags snapping and catching in the wind, the ribbon wound into a crack in the marble, leaving only echoes behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was, again, supposed to be a transitional scene that got way outta hand, but to the tune of an extra thousand words because Maxwell is Extra and will talk about his damned clothes for four hours. I had a sixteen-point list of events I hoped to cover, we got all the way to number three. GO TEAM.
> 
> Parts of this have been planned for years, others I found in the shower forty minutes before the file was done and dusted. Showers are absolutely lousy with ideas, I swear.
> 
> Thanks for this chapter:  
> \--My dearest Crow for beta reading  
> \--Crow, Masky, and all else who showed interest and kept me amped up  
> \--My sister for lending sympathy from outside of the fandom as I staggered around the house half-awake yelling incoherently about/at Maxwell  
> \--You, my patient reader, who makes it worthwhile, and keeps me walking when I'm falling down
> 
> Choice trivia for this chapter:  
> \--There is a cameo, of sorts, of a dear friend and co-conspirator in there somewhere.  
> \--This might have been out a month earlier if I hadn't contracted a salivary gland infection, nearly landed in the hospital, and spent the majority of March out of my gourd on a litany of medication, and then secondary medication to fix the problems caused by the first medication. On the other hand, I got some mileage out of the extended altered mental state. Everything is material.  
> \--Don't do drugs though kids, unless everyone in Urgent Care is staring at you because your cheek is so swollen you can't open your jaw and you apparently got there a day short of needing IV antibiotics which are a thing I guess (it was news to me). It won't be a fun experience and you will spend a lot of time thinking you have cancer, reminding yourself you don't have cancer, then forgetting you reminded yourself you don't have cancer, and eventually you will become a self-fulfilling loop of anxiety that can only be broken by someone taking pity and bringing you juice because you haven't hydrated in eight hours.  
> \--tl;dr my life is stupid.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, gentle readers, here we are again. It's against my nature to post unfinished fics--too many memories of waiting for updates that would never come--but frankly, this is going to be a long one and hopefully posting in pieces will keep me motivated. This is probably the most important of the "fill-in" fics and hopefully will make a few things make sense in retrospect, or just...spect for new readers.
> 
> There will be sex of some kind eventually. Possibly multiple kinds. Hang in there.
> 
> Thanks for this chapter:  
> Masky, a patient beta reader, and my dearest Crow, a patient beta reader and my muse
> 
> Choice Note From ephemera.txt For the Chapter (demanded by my (again, dearest) Crow):
> 
> "This has to be perfect, it has to be just the right combination of aloof and concerned and caring and worried, there is so much riding on this single reaction"  
> Maxwell: *dumps ice on Woundson's junk*  
> "great"


End file.
